Hallelujah
by Arnica
Summary: In a world where no one is winning the war between good and evil Percy Weasley has manged to hide from the war, but when a dying Sirius Black appears at his door Percy has to face not only going back to the war, but falling in love
1. Cold and broken

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

::Moon gun flash pain red home…::

I open my eyes and they burn I part my lips and they crack. I'm so hot, so tired, so alive… The tears burn my eyes, burn my face. They're so hot, I'm so hot. I move and the pain lances through me, white and burning and then it stops. I open my eyes again and look up blurrily at the silhouette above me, speaking in soft tones with cool hands. Hands that run down the burning streak of pain in my side, across the fire in my head. I try to sit up and they're gently insistent as they push against my chest. Long fingers, narrow palm, slender, but not delicate. Capable. The hand stills over a familiar scar and I try to turn away. The fire in me burns again and again the hands are there, cooling, soothing.

" You can't do that. It will just make it worse." The voice is mellow and soft and I know that I lived in England too long before I died. 

Even Angels have a British accent now.

I frown as I walk down the street towards where I parked my bike. Dinner tonight had taken a considerable amount of the money I'd allotted for the week. More than I thought it would actually, but damn it, I just couldn't face another night of eating whatever I could find in the pantry. I sigh as I swing my leg over the small motorcycle and sit in a small puddle. It rained while I was eating. Wonderful. Kicking the bike to life I glare at them small town inn as I ride away.

' Note to self; next time eat at different place' or better yet, maybe I should just continue to stay home and pretend that I'm not running away from the war. That I'm not hiding from Ron's penchant for Kamikaze missions as they try to find Harry. That I'm not hiding from Charlie's mysterious letters from nowhere that say he's safe and busy, but never anything else, that I'm not running from the burnt out rubble where Hogwarts was.

But there's no use in pretending cause I _am_ running from all that. And more.

The bike's wheels slip dangerously in the mud and I ease my clenched fists off the throttle, slowing down as I approach the small hidden path to my cottage. The low rumbling of my engine is the only sound as I hop of the vehicle, killing the engine and walking it under a small lean-to like structure. Walking around to my door I stop, the skin on the back of my neck tingling. Slowly I pull my wand, edging around the corner.

He's outstretched in a puddle, the reflection of the moon wavering around him as he makes the slightest of involuntary movements. The blood seeping into the rainwater makes the moon's glow crimson around his head. Slowly I walk forward, scanning the area around my home. There are no footprints. Wand held on him, I crouch and turn his head towards me.

He looks haggard, pain-filled, but most importantly, the skin bared on his left arm is smooth and bare. 

" Mobilus corpus" The blood begins to drip steadily in a stream, almost pouring from a wound in his side as I lift him with my wand. " Bloody fuck." Of course it couldn't be easy. It's never easy.

He drips a crimson trail across my tiles my carpet and finally begins to spread a thick red puddle across my comforter as I maneuver him onto the bed. I'm panicking as I rip the tattered robes off him. Me, panicking. Fred and George would laugh until they cried, if they were here and not somewhere building things for the war. The wound is a small, perfect circle that slips through his upper side. Below the lungs, above his kidneys, if I can stop the bleeding, he'll be fine. 

Many tense minutes and more cursing than one Weasley alone should be able to produce, his side is closed and I've found another problem, a line that curves around the side of his forehead, gouging away the flesh, letting blood flow over into his face and hair. It's very bloody, but I read somewhere that there are lots of tiny blood vessels in the human head. That even a minor wound bleeds profusely. I wouldn't call this minor, but mum wouldn't wash my mouth out either as I work to make the flesh close together

" Accio" A facecloth and a small bowl of water land gently on the nightstand. My hands are shaking as I gently wash away the blood and mud and dirt. A vaguely familiar face appears slowly. Olive skin, dark eyebrows with a faint arch, straight nose and a full mouth with an upwards tilt to the lips. I frown, trying to imagine the beard and moustache surrounding it trimmed down neatly. Giving him black eyes and a less destroyed look.

Sirius Black. Harry's Godfather 

Tiredly I sit on the edge of the bed, burying my face in, my hands. Suddenly I hope I did a better job. That my good enough was more than that.

Because if Sirius lived, that was one more reason for us cosmically why Harry needed to live too.

He sits up suddenly, waking me and pulling at the stitches I just put in less than a day ago; moaning and crying out, tears running down his face. I brush against him and could kick myself. I had forgotten about infections. His burns at the very touch as a fever rages inside him. I push him back down gently, running my hands across his body trying to find where the heat is greatest, looking for the source of the infection.

" Shh, I need you to lay very still Sirius." Of course he attempts to arch up against my hands when I find the tender area of the wound. " You can't do that, it will just make it worse." I'm not sure how he could possibly screw up the botch job I managed to pull off any worse than it is, but he settles down, groaning low in his chest as I push firmer onto the site, feeling it grow cooler under my fingers. Again there's that rush of guilt that these hands should be in battle, finding fallen schoolmates, doing this for them…so they can stand up and kill again. The sour sweet smell of infection has faded from his side and head, but I can't fight the fever under my hands. It's beyond me.


	2. A cry n the night

CHAPTER 2

And it's not a cry you can hear at night  
It's not somebody who's seen the light…

__

::'Remus!!' He's on the ground, screaming. His skin is under his nails from where he tried to climb out of it before they chained his arms to the wall. The jerking seizures in his neck and shoulders slam his head rapidly against the wall behind him. There's blood where his head hit too hard. Lucius kneels next to him, stroking his hip in a mockery of reassurance.

' Aconite and silver nitrate… it hurts, doesn't it monster? Injected under your skin like that? And you can't get it to stop burning, can you? To stop hurting? Would you like me to make it stop?" He can't speak. He's not screaming anymore either. He's choking on blood. Lucius grins at me and pulls a needle out of his robes. " This will hurt worse than anything you've ever known, and then. It will stop." I see the metallic glint inside the fluid. Silver.::

"No!" I sit up and fall to the side, stomach heaving hard, shaking my bones as it tries to bring up the food I wasn't given. My Angel is back, rubbing my back slowly.

" Shh." He touches me, regardless of the filth, the smell of death that hasn't been washed away. Regardless of my burning skin. His arms wrap around me, holding me up when my arms give out beneath me. Carefully he rolls me over, sinking me into softness and his fingers are cold as they push tiny frozen/sweet ice pieces into my mouth. " Lay back Sirius." I want to, but I push up onto my elbows. I have to know.

" Do werewolves come here too? Angel? Is Remus here waiting?" My Angel takes a step back.

" Professor Lupin is dead?" My elbow slips from beneath me and the pain jars though even me when I hit the softness. The Angel is at my side again, hands always where it hurts. " You need to sleep Sirius. We can talk when your fever goes down." A thick scent fills my nose as a warm liquid is slipped between my lips and over my tongue.

Sleeping potion.

Please, let it be dreamless sleep

***

He hasn't eaten in maybe weeks. He doesn't even have acids in his stomach. Just dry heaves that threaten to pull his stitches out again. He pitches dangerously towards the floor and I lean across the bed, holding him as tight as I can without hurting him worse. When he can breath without triggering shudders through his stomach and back I lay him backwards, picking up the cup I left balancing on the corner of my night table, picking up a chip of ice and holding it to him lips. They part slightly and the ice slides inside for him to suck on. I frown at the small cup. There's not enough here to do anything for this man but make him crave the water his body needs so badly and can't hold yet. His mouth chases one sliver, catching the tip of my fingers between his lips

" Lay back Sirius." I push him down with my free hand, pulling my finger free of the too hot mouth. He struggles back upwards.

" Do werewolves come here too?" His voice is raw and misused. I remember the last conversation I had with him before the war. Ginny blushingly compared it to dark rum. That got her teased until she drank Charlie under the table. It was a good comparison and it's now woefully inaccurate. His voice is rough, over worn and almost gone, even as he whispers something about Angels. " Is Remus here waiting?" Angel… he can't think…and if he does think, then he must know…

" Professor Lupin is dead?" I take a step back. Professor Lupin was one of the only teachers to survive the burning of Hogwarts…as long as Harry was here, as long as we had the survivors we could win. Harry's not here anymore and now only Professor Trawlney survives, locked deep within St. Mungos, driven mad by visions of the burning. The tremors rush through his body again and he falls back, even the short fall sending pain through his abused body. I sit on the edge of the bed, resting my hands over the troublesome injury in his side. He gives a shudder before relaxing into the bed and I reach over, pulling a small vial from my night table. A sleeping draught, for the nights when my guilt is too great. I put it to his lips. " You need to sleep Sirius. We can talk when your fever goes down." 

I'm so tired. So dirty and tired. That's easy enough to fix simply bather and sleep. The problem is in what order should I do them. Sirius shifts slightly and manages to take up the entire center of the bed with just that one movement. Right. Bath first. 

The steam fills the tiny bath, fogging up the mirrors in mere seconds as I strip out of the same clothes I've worn and slept in for two days. Kicking the jeans to the furthest corner I lean against the sink glaring at the misty mirror. The vaguest impression of dark brown eyes behind a curtain of dark red hair stares back at me. I lift a hand and smear the mist around to produce a minutely clearer picture. I need to shave. The shadow of facial hair makes me look worn and tired. The light glints off the smooth burn scars on my shoulder and upper chest and I watch the mirror fog up again, swallowing the image until it's just an impression of pale skin, brown eyes and red hair again.

The tub is a warm haven, the water holding me lightly and warming me through. I sink back, rolling my shoulders under the surface before leaning my head back against the wall, breathing in the thick hot air…

__

:: " Shh, come on, this way." His golden eyes are laughing as he sits atop Professor Snapes' desk. " Come here."

" Do you know what they'd do if they caught us?" He grins at me, pulling me to stand between his legs, long musician's fingers laying aside the folds of my school robes, skimming lightly over skin. " Cam…"

" Mm? His breath is hot on my chest, hotter, until it burns. I look again and he stands there in the middle of the hospital wing, smoke rising lightly from his skin as he looks at me desperately. " Go Percy!" 

" Cameron…" His hand burns my skin as he shoves me through the open window. Before I hit the water I see the flash of light where he was and hear the roar of scorching wind that knocks me half way across the lake before I sink to the bottom…::

I pull myself out from under the surface of the now tepid bath water with a gasp. I'm not drowning again. It was just the bath and a nightmare. Shakily I pull the plug from the tub, letting the water swirl around me and disappear.

Several deep breaths later I'm pulling on a pair of navy blue sweats and curling onto the far side of the bed, face buried in the arm of the too large dress shirt slipped over me.

" Cameron…"


	3. Burn me

CHAPTER 3

Love is not a victory march  
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

He's not dead. He's here beside me, cool and slender, skin smooth under my fingers. You always take such good care of me Moony. The muscles in his stomach flutter under my fingers as I trace my name on your skin. When I'm burning up you feel so good. So good. Your skin is fresh from the bath and your hair is soft and damp against my face when I kiss your neck.

" Remus." I arch up against him. " Moony." He goes ridged under me, suddenly awake. I nip his ear. " I'm burning." My confession is rough on my painful throat. " Burn me more."

" Sirius.." A soft strangled little sigh when I wrap hot hot hands around hot hot flesh. Such pretty noises. The fire burns inside me and I want it all. Now. I want the fire to burn out; to clear my head. 

" God! Please, burn me more." Even hard and warm in my hand, even whimpering under my tongue he's cooler than I am. I want to be inside him, I want him around me. It feels like it's been too long since we flew in the stars and saw God together. But I'm so hot and so tired, I think if I saw God tonight I might stay. He feels my indecision, he always does. Love him. Love him so much. He rolls us, hand going down and grasping me in that sweet cool touch. I move and pain mixes with that cool up and down and the sweet mouth at my throat in a rush that steals my breath. Too fast, don't stop, he's bucking into my hand just as hard and the fire is so hot, if he weren't so cool I'd have died by now. Hotter and hotter and he gives a dark moan into my hair as the fire flares up and blots 0ut my vision and sends me to the stars.

For one beautiful moment I thought it was Cam. And then I realized it was Sirius, and that was alright too.

Then he called me Remus. 

"Sirius…" He's there before I can finish, hot hands on my erection, hot tongue tracing wet lines down and across my chest, flicking it gently over my nipples and it's so hot and I haven't been this hot and felt this good in almost a year. He mutters against my skin and he's still sick, but a light sheen is starting to form on his forehead. He needs this so bad on so many levels and he's so good with his hands, with his mouth all the while thinking I'm a dead man.

Rolling him over is easier than I expected, sliding out of my clothes when his hand is still slipping up and down over my erection is another matter. In the end I think I kick them over the fish tank. His mouth has to relinquish it's hold on my nipple to accommodate for this new position. His hand is still scalding my flesh and feeling so good when it does. He's so fast and I try to match pace, try to finish him before the heat and pleasure finish his senses. His writhing is a danger to his half healed side, but if anything the pain that should slow him down spurs him on.

God his hands are so good. Even delirious and half dead he's good. He's so hot, hot and sweet as I bite his neck, moaning into the thick dark hair like I did so many times before, riding the orgasm to it's last.

I rise from the bed, leaving Sirius in a sticky mess in the middle. My hands shake as I get a face cloth from the bath, wetting it, cleaning myself. He's finally broken a sweat, the danger of the infection is almost gone now.

'_ Burn me_.' I let my legs go out from under me, curling up into a ball against the sink. ' _burn_.' Cameron, a human inferno. An explosion that rocked the school from it's foundation into rubble. My breath catches in my chest and I lower my head between my knees, taking slow breaths through my nose. Cameron's curling reddish brown hair, the color of blood and good milk chocolate smelling of heat as he tried to fight his way out of the infirmary. '_burn…_' I drop the face cloth and lean over the toilet, shoulders heaving and nothing coming up. Tears make ripples in the water. " Cam."

My knees are still weak when I finally get the strength to stand, stumbling out to the bedroom. He's still sprawled across the middle of the bed, sweaty and sticky and with a half smile on his face and I should probably be gentler with him as I wash him clean, but I can't. I can't rouse that much sympathy for someone who gets to pretend. I just hope I can draw up any emotions for him when he remembers Professor Lupin is dead.

Picking up Cam's shirt from where I placed it across the headboard before, I slip it on, heading out to the couch in the den. 

The stereo plays Leonard Cohen and I glare at the piano gathering dust in the corner. It's done nothing of course, but it just feels right to blame the instrument. If he hadn't given me the piano, maybe our relationship wouldn't have gone as far as it had. Maybe Professor Dumbledore wouldn't have agreed to let him stay at Hogwarts. Maybe they would all be alive.

Maybe I should start playing again.


	4. The Baffled King

CHAPTER 4

The baffled king composing Hallelujah  


:: _The needle slides into the vein at the top of his foot and the swirling silver opal poison slips into his veins. For a moment it's silent. Eerily silent. No screams of pain, no pleas for release. And then he gives a sound so inhuman it brings tears to my eyes. He bucks harder than he ever has, lunging forward and the silver manacles rip from the wall. Lucius gives a small comical whimper before the chain swings around in a shinning blur. His head rolls until it's stopped by my feet. His brain fires off a few more synapses and his grey eyes blink at me once, twice, his lips struggling to form a word, a curse before it stops. Remus falls at my feet beside the severed head, arms cradling my legs. He looks up at me and his eyes are brilliant red from the blood flooding inside them. He makes a whining noise. I've only heard that noise once, from a wolf I saw shot in France. That's the sound of death. Tears blur the room and the wind from the night sky outside the cells blows them away. They've raised him high, dangling him from chains above the town as he dies._::

I sit up into the first day of clear thought in what feels like an eternity. Remus. I draw my knees up ender the thick dark green comforter, resting my head against it and ignoring the shooting pain through my side. My heart…if half of what I think I might remember is true, the fever I had should have dehydrated me. I shouldn't have these tears left. These tears that won't stop.

" Remus…" The constriction in my chest makes gasping that one word painful. "Moony." Moony/Remus/lover/mate/heart/soul I let you die so horribly. I should have stopped him. I should have died too. I should be with you…

I wake up again in the same bed and this time I manage to look around the room. It's small and neat, almost Spartan in it's decoration. Just the bed, a dresser, a desk, a fish tank, and a chair. From the desk an array of pictures wave tentatively at me. Nine red haired figures, a Weasley. I let out a small barking laugh of relief. I didn't make it home. I didn't die on my own land, but I've always had the devil's luck. I survived in the only place safe for me. With one of the Weasley boys. Carefully I shift myself to the edge of the bed, setting my feet onto the cold wood floor. Carefully I push myself to my feet and wobble for a moment. Despite my careful movement I fall down.

So I stand back up and try again.

It takes three falls before I get to the bathroom.

My reflection is like a flashback to Azakaban. The same gaunt face, sunken eyes and ratty hair. I'm older, and at least I'm clean this time, but it's still to familiar. I turn away and stumble towards the door again, my legs steadier underneath me. The pounding of music draws me towards the den. 

His head is bent towards the keys as he sways and pounds his long fingers against the keys fiercely through the verses of Cohen's Hallelujah. His voice comes from nowhere, pained and deep as he throws back his head, singing along.

Percy Weasley.

" Hello Sirius." He never stops playing, simply bows his head again as the intensity changes. " Sit down. You shouldn't be up and around yet." I take a seat on the couch, body melting tiredly into the cushions as I stare out the picture window at the small duck pond.

We had a pond like that at our cottage.

I curl in on myself again, my arms around my knees as I sob. Percy simply plays on, leaving me alone with my tears and memories and I'm grateful. I want to remember how Remus felt when he'd wrap his arms around me and tell me I was safe. I want his voice.

I want him.

***

The fourth, the fifth, the falls in minor, the lifts in major…it's coming back quickly. The old, familiar melodies and harmonies. My fingers pound the worn, familiar keys. I played Christmas chorals, hymns, and even muggle pop ballads on this piano, all just to hear Cameron sing them with me. I sway along with the music, letting it take me, singing where I feel it urge me, letting the music carry itself where it desires to. 

' It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah! Hallelujah…" I bend back towards the keys, the skin on my neck prickling as someone stands in the doorway.

" Hello Sirius." I let him move into my peripheral vision. " Sit down, you shouldn't be up yet." He collapses onto the sofa and tucks his knees up, curled into a ball and staring out the window. I don't think he knows yet that's he's crying. I almost cry myself with relief. He's alive and yes, I can feel for him. I can remember myself curled in the window seat in the kitchen, staring at our gardens and wishing I had decided to join Cam for that drink in the Leaky Cauldron. I sat like that for days until I decided that I hated Cam. Hated him for going out when he could have stayed with me, hated him for leaving me, hating him for getting captured and hated him for dying. That lasted long enough for me to get up and see his picture.

A tear falls on the keys under my fingers and I've played Hallelujah through five times now. My fingers give no clue that they plan on stopping as they carry themselves through the rest of the verse.

The fourth, the fifth…


	5. Proof in Faith

CHAPTER5

Your faith was strong, but you needed proof

"Sirius?" He's got a plate in his hands and he's offering it to me. Eggs and ham. I shake my head. I don't want to eat. I want to heal and leave. I want to find Voldemort and throttle him, see if his veins like the deadly opal/silver poison any better than Remus' did. It'll kill him just as surely. I won't have the pleasure of seeing him scream until _his_ throat bleeds and the blood vessels in _his_ eyes pop… my shoulders heave and Percy neatly kicks his dust bin under me as the little bit of dinner he managed to blackmail into eating the night comes up. I meet his eyes as he offers me a glass of water. " Well _some_ people on this planet think I'm a good cook."

" You're a great cook...I was just thinking…"

" I know." He nudges the bin away from his bed, crossing his long legs underneath himself as he begins eating the food himself. " That was my sarcastic voice. I've been told it sounds like my regular voice." I give him a half grin. You're never going to heal all the way if you don't eat."

" Like I might mysteriously lose my ability to shave?" He grins at me.

" You don't live with brothers like mine and not learn the finer points of blackmail." He absently tucks a stray piece of hair behind his ear. " So," He chews a piece of ham absently. " How in the hell'd you manage to get shot? Snuffles stealing chickens from a muggle farmer?"

" No." I look at the ragged, nails on my left hand, one torn off half way. " I was running from Aurors, one of them was muggle born and she carried a gun." I shrug and begin biting down the rest of my nails. " She took a few good shots and I wasn't exactly fighting to live." He gives me a dirty look and I'm tempted to ball up my fist and break that pretty nose of his.

" Why not?" He asks. " You can't think that's what Professor Lupin would have wanted…" It's not till I notice his hair whipping to the side as his face rocks left that I realize I've punched him.

" You don't know a goddamn thing about Remus. About what he wanted, how he lived o how he died!" He sits up and punches me so hard the edge of my vision goes black. His voice is cold.

" I know more than you think. I worked with him you know. For two years I knew the man and I was there when they didn't think he's survive the burning." His face contorts as he fights back the growing look of disgust and anguish.

" Were you in town during the burning?" His eyes close for a moment and he's struggling to decide weather or not to tell me what he knows, and somehow I know that he knows more than anyone alive about the burning of Hogwarts.

" I was _at_ Hogwarts that day." He unbuttons his shirt, slipping his right arm out of the cloth, baring a large burn that covers his upper shoulder and chest down to mere millimeters above his nipple. In the center is a dark, smooth scar shaped like a human hand, the fingers splayed, gripping his shoulder, the thumb curled across his collarbone. " I was at the center of the explosion before I got pushed out of the window into the lake." He goes to shrug back into his shirt and I stop him, leaning closer and peering deeply at the mark. Underneath the smell of soap and fear I can smell the remnants of heat that never quite leaves a burn like this. But more importantly I can see, just vaguely the burnt imprints of palm lines and fingerprints. Truly a human hand.

" This isn't…" My words fail me. " I mean they'd have to be…"

" He was." Percy slips off the edge of the bed. " You didn't _really_ believe the explosion was anything natural, did you?" His voice is filled with contempt. " Shame you didn't want breakfast. It was quite good, but if you get hungry, there's food in the pantry." His hands tremble as he buttons his shirt again. " I'll see you later Sirius."

He's only been gone a few moments before I realize I really was hungry. It doesn't take long to fry two more eggs and another slice of ham, retiring to the library to look over the duck pond again and take this time to grieve again. 

And that's when I notice the worn brown photo album laying open on the coffee table.

***

He's not eating again. I had to threaten to take his razor so he couldn't shave last night and to withhold clean clothes the day before. He's deep in thought when I enter, obviously about Professor Lupin and I have to shove the plate under his nose to get his attention. He responds by gagging. Quickly I kick my dust bin under him, moving the food far away.

" You know, _some_ people on this planet think I'm a good cook." I quip. He gets a shocked, apologetic look on his face as he sits up, sipping at the water I hand him.

" No, you're a great cook" He reassures hastily. " I was just thinking…" 

" I know." I nudge the bin away from the bed and sit cross legged on the edge of the bed, picking at the ham in front of me and not tasting it. " So, how in the hell'd you manage to get shot?" He gives me a wry smirk as I make a crack about stealing chickens and then proceeds to tell me how he get shot by an Auror. Aurors carry guns now. We really are in Dark times, but perhaps they are worse this time. This time we know what we face and still can't stop it. 

"…I wasn't exactly fighting to live." He finishes. I can _feel_ my eyes narrow in annoyance. How could he _not_ fight to live when we need everyone we have so badly. When our numbers have been cut so drastically when they _wanted_ to live. Even _I_ never gave up like that. How dare he, when Harry and everyone else still needs him. His shoulders tense and he balls his fists.

" Why not?" He's pissed me off. I thought I was the coward, hiding here, but I never really tired to give up and leave it all. " You can't think that's what Professor Lupin would have wanted…" His fist shoots out, clipping my chin and my teeth click shut, barely missing my tongue as he rants at me about not knowing the man at all, when sometimes I wonder if he even knows why Professor Lupin was back at Hogwarts in the first place. I sit back up and use the momentum of my push to punch him back, my fist connecting more solidly with his jaw than his did with mine.

" I know more than you think. I worked with him you know. For two years I knew the man and I was there when they didn't think he's survive the burning." He's pissed me off in ways no one has in a long time. I almost want to tell everything to him, just to watch him, but I can't. 

And I don't need to. He's already pieced it together, somewhat.

" You were in town during the burning?"

" I was at Hogwarts that day." I jerk open the tan shirt, slipping my arm out of it and baring my right side to him. His eyes scan over it searchingly as I admit to being in the hospital wing before I was saved. For a moment neither of us so much as breathes…and then he leans across the bed and rests his hand on my thigh as he bends his head to study the center of the mark, seeing what others try not to believe. Cam's handprint, burnt down to the last line in his palm into my skin.

" This isn't…" He's lost for words, but I know what he wants to know. He wants to know that this couldn't be the hand of a man. " He would have to be…" He would have to be hot enough to combust. 

" He was." He looks up at me in bewilderment and unconsciously wets his lips in a nervous gesture. I pull away from him as I realize I would lay him flat on this bed and fuck him until neither of us hurt, simply because we both _do_ hurt, so badly. I'm rambling on about breakfast as I try to button my shirt again, practically running from the room, and running really doesn't seem like that bad of an idea. I hit the porch in a sprint and take off through the trees, knowing already where I'm going. The Haven.

I throw myself down in the tall grass beside the stream in the middle of the clearing. Sometimes it's so easy to get caught up and forget to care that the seasons have come and gone and changed. It's late spring and the wildflowers around the rock formation are bright. I haven't come here to watch the flowers since I left to return to Hogwarts.

Catching my breath I stand up, walking over to the natural little alter like structure. A wild rose, a violet, a dandelion, a sprig of little leaves with the bright silver backs and a clover, twined together and set on the alter.

" I wish I had come and done this sooner. I shouldn't have left the haven because you weren't here with me." I can't stop the words rushing from my mouth, even though he can't hear me. " But I wasn't strong enough and now I have to be because he can't be strong right now and I have to help him like they helped me, don't I?" The wind blows my hair in my eyes. " They haven't found Harry yet you know. They keep looking for him and some people are starting to think that maybe Voldemort doesn't have him. Maybe he just ran…like me, but I didn't run Cam, I just couldn't leave our home…not again. I couldn't let someone else get hurt…" I rest my head on the alter and for once I don't want to cry because of how much I miss him, but instead for how much I loved him and they don't sound different but inside they feel different and when it starts to rain warm and soft, I know I'm ready to go back…to everything.


	6. The Toccata and fugue and D minor

CHAPTER 6

Baby I've been here before, I know this room  
I've walked this floor  
I used to live alone before I knew you  


" I want him dead. I don't want to grieve anymore and I don't want to heal. I want him dead." Percy sighs, pushing his plate away as we sit at the table. " And I don't care if I have to walk out of here naked and starving, you can't keep me here…"

" If you want to come with me we're heading back in a week." He interrupts, staring off out the windows. " That's time for me to get the house settled and for your stitches to come out. If you feel you need to leave earlier I can't stop you." His face is pale and drawn. It's taking everything he has to say this.

" You don't have to come with me. This isn't about you Percy…" He stand up suddenly, shoving away from the table.

" Wrong Sirius. It's more about me then you can imagine. Excuse me." And he's gone into the den and the piano is singing mournful tones through the doorway as I stare down at the thick potato and onion soup. An owl at the window draws my attention and I let it in, taking the parchment from it to the den. He's playing the Toccata and fugue and D minor.

" You have an owl." I place the parchment on the piano, settling myself onto the couch again, staring instead at the scars on my wrists that Percy hadn't healed. I'm glad he didn't. I need the scars and the anger… and a wail comes from Percy that makes my skin crawl. He's crumpled to his knees , head on the keyboard as he stares at the paper, tears creeping down from his wide eyes. " Percy?" He looks up at me and he can't be more than twenty-six years old. I never thought about it before. 

" Ron's platoon is missing." His hands tremble as he curls in on himself. " And it's happening again…what if it happens again? They still have the curse and it's such a bad way to die…" He's babbling as I kneel next to him, gently pulling the letter from his hands. The slender writing of a woman covers the page, asking him to come home, warning him for his safety, telling him that Ron's men disappeared on the latest search for Harry… I place the paper face down on the piano bench. Caught looking for Harry…Remus and I were caught looking for Harry.

'Please don't let them have his brother. Not like they took Remus…God please.'

I didn't think I could feel anything but rage and ripping emptiness. The rush of sympathy shocks me as I stand on suddenly weak legs, taking his hand in mine, helping him up and letting him fall against me.

" I didn't think they could hurt me anymore. They killed him and it was my fault and now my family and what did I do…" His words are a long soft cry as I help him to his bedroom, watching as he collapses onto the edge of the bed. " I thought they were finished when they took him and I was so sure that I'd never see him again and then one day he was _there_ and he was sick and he had such a bad fever but it didn't matter right except it got worse and worse…" He's gripping my wrist, looking up at me with urgent but _coherent_ eyes. " And no one ever thought to listen to him, we all thought he had a raving fever…until one day it just started rising, higher and higher and we could smell him burning, but he _looked_ fine and he was trying to fight his way out of the school and when he couldn't he put his hands on me and it burnt worse than any pain I ever imagined and he pushed me out the window and he just _stood_ there and then he was gone and so was Hogwarts and they used him as a _bomb_."

And every question I ever had that no one could ansewer, who could slip a bomb curse though Hogwarts shields, who could slip a true bomb inside, was answered in one neat little package that no one should have to know. One clever curse and anyone could become a weapon of war for someone ruthless enough to use them.

He sounds so young when he cries.

" Shh." It's all I know to say as I sit, gathering him up to me. I can't tell him it will be okay because it won't. I know what they'll do to his brother. " Shh." He curls up against me, glasses digging into my side before he pulls them off and hurls them across the room where they fall into the fish tank.

Where do tears come from? I know where they come from, but shouldn't there be a limit to the times I can cry? To the times I can make my soul tangible and flush it from my body? I toe off my boots and pull him down to lay on the bed, letting him fit himself against me as he sobs.

" Shh."

***

I don't even change out of the wet clothes I'm wearing. It's so much easier to just stand by the stove chopping potatoes and onions, watching them boil down into thick soup. Sirius appears as it the food finishes. Like my brothers he apparently has some sort of alarm built into his system to let him know when something near is edible. That makes me smile and I don't think I've really smiled in a long time. I sit a plate down beside him and take a seat, taking a bite of the thick soup. Sirius is brooding beside me, even as he swallows great spoonfuls of his food. Finally he puts his spoon down and forces my hand.

" I want him dead. I don't want to grieve anymore and I don't want to heal. I want him dead." I put my spoon down, and push my food back as he continues to rant.

" If you want to come with me, we're leaving in a week." There. I've said it. It's real now. Not some idea I can back out of at the last minute. I take a long look out the window across from me. A small snidget lands on the humming bird feeder, gleaming between the equally bright and beautiful red and green humming birds. I'm going to miss all this so much when I'm gone. " That gives me enough time to get the house settled and get your stitches taken out. If you want to leave earlier I can't stop you…" but don't. I plead silently. Don't make me do this alone. He shoots me a baffled look.

" You don't have to come with me. This isn't about you Percy." His words are like a slap in the face. To him I'm a coward who feels forced. He's trying to protect me from things he doesn't even know. I shove back from the table and stand.

" Wrong Sirius. It's more about me then you can imagine. Excuse me." I push past the table and punch the wall once on my way to the den, flinging myself onto the piano bench. How could I have stopped playing so long? How could I have forgotten how good it felt to hear your own feelings solidified down to purest music. My fingers tickle al0ng a slow, fearful improvision before they launch themselves into the Toccata and fugue and D minor. I'm halfway through the second movement when Sirius drops a piece of parchment on the piano top, sitting on the couch again. My scar aches as I get near it. Bad news. It's always bad news.

__

Percy,

Darling, you must come home as soon as possible. Ron's platoon has gone missing somewhere near Devon. Bill and Charlie are on their way home and the twins are already here. I want the family together in case of the worst.

I love you

Mum.

Devon.

Death Eaters took Devon as their newest strong hold months ago. My hands tremble and suddenly a throb of pain lights my burn.

Oh god.

They still have the curse. They can do it again.

It's happening again

Sirius touches me and I look up at him. Up. I must be on the floor. I don't remember getting off the piano bench or speaking, but he's got the letter from mum and his face is white as he takes my wrist, pulling me to my feet and holding me against his good side when my knees get weak. We stumble through the house and he lets me slid off him onto the bed.

" I didn't think they could hurt me again…" No, I thought my heart died when they used Cam against us, but this is my brother. This is my blood and part of all I have left. My mind keeps wandering back to the night when Cam wandered off onto the path. A ten minute walk that took two weeks. I had consigned myself to never seeing him again and then one day there he was, tossed onto the edge of the forest and so sick. So sick he shook and burnt with a fever that wouldn't get better…

I look up at Sirius' stunned face and realize every thought is pouring out of my mouth. Everything I wasn't able to tell anyone else is coming out for him as I grip his wrist to try and make him hear me.

So I continue, not that I could stop and it's all right there and it's happening again. The scent of heat, rising suddenly one day until all you smelt anywhere in the infirmary was fire. Cam knowing what was happening to him, fighting so hard to get out and being too sick to succeed…

__

::" Percy, you have to let me out…" His voice is strained as he fights against where the headmaster and Madame Pomfrey hold him through dragon hide gloves. I can't stop sobbing and shaking my head. This isn't right. He should be dead. I can smell him burning. The frantic look in his eyes takes on a new desperation as he reaches around and places his hand against Professor Dumbledore's arm. The man pulls back, clutching his arm and even from here I can see the burns through his clothing as he rushes me, a burning imitation of the man I loved until he stops in front of me.

" I love you so much. Don't forget." and then his hand is on my shoulder and no pain is like this pain. There was nothing real before this pain. Even the glass shattering at my back isn't real as I plunge through it. Only the last image of Cam, a silhouette against a blinding blast of white is real, even through the pain and then the wind hits me and the pain isn't real either::

I'm not sure what I've said and what I've just relived in one of a thousand waking nightmares, but Sirius has me and he's rocking me like a child, soft shushing noises mixing with tears in my hair as he stretches us out along my bed, fitting himself to me even as I curl into him and cry like I haven't cried since that day. When he let's me cry against someone else.

" Shh." His voice is a million miles away and a soft hiss. " Shh."


	7. The holy dark

CHAPTER7

I remember when I moved in you  
And the holy dark was moving too  
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah  


::_ " We're going to be in trouble with someone if we get caught, I just know it." The sweet honey golden voice slips through me, a familiar rush. He's using a tone I haven't heard often enough since we were seventeen years old. He's using his 'Marauders voice'._

" Remus." He feels solid, more so than any dream I ever dreamt of him as I push him into the grass, covering his skin, his face, the silvered streaks in his hair with my hands and lips and kisses. I pause when my lips hit smooth skin on his right side. I look up at him and his amber/brandy/honey eyes are amused and apologetic and resigned and a million other things all at once. " The bite…" I've never dreamed of a Remus without a scar. It's so much of a part of the man I love…

" Sirius…I'm not supposed to be here." He kisses me softly. " I'm only supposed to watch and wait for you…but I knew you'd need something beautiful, so I came to make sure you didn't feel guilty about it." I run my fingers through his hair, trace the outline of his lips with my fingers, and memorize his face again with my hands.

" What are you talking about? You *are* my something beautiful." His lips are soft against my palm.

" You need something to hold you to earth. Something to keep you there until you find Harry for us."

" Us?" I look around and funny how I didn't notice how truly endless this meadow looks. He smiles and kisses my cheek.

" You couldn't have thought they were anywhere but here." He teases. His face sobering suddenly as the sky dims softly. " Fuck all Cam, you said we had time…" He whispers.

" Cam? Percy's…" He nods. " You don't mean you want…" His smile is the most beautiful one he's ever given me, I've only seen one like it, the first time I said I loved him.

" I want you to be ready to be here with us and to do that, you need to find one thing to be able to love. It may not be him, but it's a start love."

" I don't want to love anymore. Just you." He gives me 'the look' The ' Sirius-why-can't-you-listen-to-me-and-don't-you-always-regreat-not-listening-to-me' look as the sky gets darker still.

" I'm not saying you have to love him Padfoot, but love what you can do together. Love it when the pain stops. Love it when you can forget. Love something…for me." A wind blows. The first one I've felt. " I'm fucking coming! Give me a minute!" I laugh through the choking lump in my throat. You never could rush my Moony. I melt against him as he pulls me in as tight as he can. Like we could slip into the same body and go where ever the other is going.

" You have to go now." The grass is a silvery blue under the full moonlight. He looks up at the round orb and he's more beautiful underneath it's light than any man has a right to be. I knew he'd be stunning under it. His face is wondrous as he looks directly into it.

" You cheating little bastard." He whispers and then he's gone. Just a shadow in the light and then not even that.::

Percy's warm against me, his face buried in my neck. His breath is a hot gust as he sighs, nuzzling closer in his sleep. His lips are light brushes against my skin and I shiver, letting it tremble through my whole body. Something beautiful together… somehow he slips from sleep to wakefulness in my arms without my notice until he nips gently at the base of my throat, hand a hesitant question on my hip.

" Sirius?" Moony this isn't fair. Knowing you approve of this makes it so much harder for me to tell my body no. I push up on my elbows and look down at him, eyes heavy with sleep and a desperate desire that curls through me and smolders. His hair is tumbled in his face, seeming to break down everyone of the careful barriers I've always seen around him.

" Percy…I can't…" His eyes flash with pain as he sits up, lips parted ever so slightly. I pull my gaze from his mouth and close my eyes, letting my head roll back. His breath is a hot rush in my ear as he leans up towards me.

" I'm not asking you to love me. I'm just asking you to give me one last beautiful memory in this house before I leave it." His tongue finds the sweet spot behind my ear and I bite my lip. " Give me one thing to think of when I need it." My hands are tangled in the sheets as an incisor finally breaks the skin inside my lip, sending a small blood tang into my mouth. His teeth scrape across the skin there and I choke on a breath as my hips snap upwards.

" Oh God…" 

That pretty much sums it up. 

His legs are long as he swings them across mine, settling across my hips, rubbing slowly against me though layers of thick denim. His breath catches in his chest as the damp denim rubs against him, arching further against me, tongue flicking out across my lips.

Oh, who ever thought the boy could be such a tease? His mouth is smoked apple sweet when he lets me in.

Nimble fingers give the faintest impression of scratching as they pull down, leaving trails that burn from far more than pain ever could and coloring the back of my eyes swirling reds. Quick fingers at my belt, slipping it through the loops with a swish of leather against fabric. My eyes glaze as he sits above me, thin black leather wrapped round his hand as he arches against me, lips open, eyes shut…not the dominant one…just initiator.

I catch his wrists at my shoulders and pull one to my mouth, nipping at the skin beneath. He gives a strangled moan and I do it again, watching his entire body jerk against mine.

The skin on his back is soft as I put my hand around him, bracing him as I roll us towards the center of the bed. I kneel between splayed thighs, tossing belts to the floor. His eyes are shut so tightly I don't think he's noticed the one glimmer of a tear in the corner of his eye. I lean down and catch it with my tongue as it rolls towards the thick red hair, hand squirming down between us. Zippers and buttons are quick work as I search for skin. Smooth hot wanting hungry skin and the urge to have him under me and explore every inch of it is fairly overwhelming. He gives a small cry when I grasp him in my hand, burying my face in his neck.

" Wait." His voice is a ragged pant as he prop himself up onto his elbows and then his knees, kneeling. Hands slide into the waistband of jeans, edging worn fabric down. His eyes hold me in place as he eases the denim off me, letting it crumple across the comforter. Slow hands glide up the inside of thighs, sliding to the outside and resting on my hips again.

" Percy…" Silent eyes pin me as he dips his head, a thick curtain of red hiding him from sight. 

The breath he exhales is hot and wet around me. His sheets are soft under my palms as I grip them. His tongue is a painfully slow dance of hot soft velvet as he traces up the underside of my erection, hair tickling my stomach as he shifts and moves.

I stare at the ceiling, letting the cracks slip in and out of focus because I can't look down. I can't watch that head of thick red hair and not come. 

He hums a little in his throat and I'm so close to coming, ceiling or no. He draws a hissing breath and when I look down my hands are tangled in his hair tightly, pulling. He looks up at me and his eyes are far from reproachful, they're full of fire. He grins at me, a silent dare to make it all go away. His eyes never drop at he trails the tip of his tongue around the head, slipping down the underside and catching the skin with his teeth just sharp enough to make me tighten my grip in his hair. He slips up to his knees with the slightest tug. He falls backwards willingly with a slight push.

He moans as my weight settles across him, pinning the trapped erection tighter in his jeans. His hands flex as I pull them over his head, nuzzling my way down his chest. He's a constantly flowing water smooth motion as I flick my tongue across a nipple. The ridges of the hard flesh catch across the very tip of my tongue. He's panting and bucking and he's so hard against my stomach. People have said you really can't undo trousers with your teeth.

They don't practice hard enough.

Oh, he really is beautiful, arched out and bare…except for those damn pants tangled at his ankles. I pick up both pair and throw them.

The leg of a pair of the jeans lands in the fish tank.

" Don't move." He nods shakily, the tip of his tongue appearing briefly to wet his lips before he lets his head roll back. I want him in a million ways and all at once, but he's so close and he's hot and wanting and the world is here. In this bed, sprawled out with his hands gripping the headboard and legs folded under him and spread wide. His skin is smooth under my tongue. Smooth and sweat-salty and he grips the headboard so tight I hear his knuckles pop as my head dips lower, , getting him wet. The noise he makes is beyond words and I want him now.

He has the restraint of a saint. Even when I push inside him, as slow as I can manage when he's hot and tight and squirming like the world will end, he never lets go of the headboard. I can see the tip of his incisor sink into his lip and I push deeper, bending forward to catch the bead of blood on my tongue.

He fucking *wails*.

Not home. The body under me isn't home. I'm never going home again...but the heat and the cries are beautiful, just like he said I'd find them and warm shelter is better than no home at all.

And maybe I could grow to love the heat and cries and the tears that are as right as the crooning whimpers and the dark.

His hands are heavy in my hair as I feel sobs hitch through his chest.

" Thank you."

I'm not sure what to say.

***

::_ "You cut your hair." He gives me a stern mock glare from those jade green eyes. My knees fail me and nothing could be more right than to kneel before the chance to see that smile again. " I didn't say you had to apologize on hands and knees now, you didn't cut it that much…" He stops as I grab him as hard as I can, arms locked around his waist, face buried against his hip. " Percy…"_

" It was my fault and it was ours…I should have known the signs and …" He's kneeling before me and even dead he's got the sharp sweet taste of chocolate mint and things that don't have names. His hand fits itself to the scar on my shoulder, tracing it softly.

" They couldn't heal it?"

" I wouldn't let them. It was all I had left…" His hand still fits my face perfectly.

" My sweet prince. My poor Percy." His eyes holding mine are filled with a pain that shouldn't exist here. " God, when I told Remus what to do…I didn't think it would hurt so good."

" So good?" He eases me back onto the grass, resting his head beside mine. In our life together we made only two major decision ever in an upright position. One was that we should date…the other was that I didn't want to go to the three Broomsticks that night.

" Oh yes. It hurts because of why…because of what will happen and mostly because I can't be what you need. But it's so sweet because it is what you need and maybe for seconds at a time…maybe you won't hurt so hard I can feel it." His hair wraps soft and silky around my fingers. Oh God. I had almost forgotten how that felt. " You're leaving the house and things are going to get so hard you won't want to bear it unless you find something beautiful there to keep." I can't even speak to tell him no. I want no sound but his voice so I can make sure that for another year I know what it sounds like shaping every word and letter. I shake my head. " Yes, and I'd say a good start is in that bed." He nuzzles my neck. "Shh, I know, but you'll need him love and I need you to do this for yourself." He's fidgeting. Some habits even death can't erase. He's hiding something.

" What is it Cameron?" He gives me an apologetic look.

" Well…we're kind of breaking several big rules by coming to you two and we need to get back," He kisses me. " Now." He helps me up, hands ghosting over my hair. " Make it beautiful." He whispers and then he's a breath of wind and then nothing at all.::

He's trembling in my arms, the soft sudden shaking of desire and perhaps a dozen other things. The clean skin of his throat is barely a centimeter from my face. I lean forward the tiniest bit it takes and brush my lips against the throbbing pulse there, feeling him shiver against me. The tip of my tongue barely brushes the soft skin under his jaw and he tastes clean and dark. Ginny's comparison of dark rum comes to mind again. 

I touch his hip and he surges up onto his elbows.

" Sirius?" He's looking down at me, eyes trapped between desperation and desire. 

" Percy…I can't." He's caught between needing to put aside the world for a moment and loyalty to Professor Lupin. Hadn't Cam said we? Didn't Professor Lupin speak to him?

" I'm not asking you to love me." The words stick in my throat as I lean towards his ear, tracing the skin beneath it with my tongue. He groans in his chest "I'm just asking you to give me one last beautiful memory in this house before I leave it." I let my teeth graze the skin there and he bits his lip, hips arching off the bed, surging against the air. "Give me one thing to think of when I need it." And I know I'll need it…that life will be hard, but that groan as he gives himself over means for the moment it doesn't matter. 

Time feels frozen as I slide a leg over his, lowering until I sit astride his lap. A slow rub against him makes his hips rise and my fingers dig his shoulders as the jeans that never dried on me rub against me. He sets the pace and I'm all to glad to follow, pressing closer. He moans as I lean down, flickering my tongue over the small bead of blood there. His tongue is hot and slick slipping against mine as I look for his belt, pulling myself back as my fingers fumble. A jerk and it's free. He looks up at me and grabs my waist tracing the lines below my palm, nipping at the veins, grinding against me, rolling me over. The leather strap is pulled from my hands. It lands on the floor with a soft thwap. His knees hold my legs apart and his tongue traces a line down my cheek.

A whimpering mewling noise escapes me when his hand wraps around me. Hard and fast and right. Skin against skin against denim against denim against more skin…

" Wait." Huh, wait. The hardest word I've had to say lately. He rocks back on his knees, hair tangled in his face, legs wide and wanton. The buttonhole on the pants is so frayed the brass circle slips out with the slightest tug. His skin is smooth in the smallest of patches, scars welting over the rest as I slide the jeans off his hips. 

He's fucking beautiful as I slid my hands up his legs. He says my name slowly, letting it roll in the air. I look at him and he goes still, rocking back further on his heels. The sheets slip under me as I ease myself down, hiding behind my hair as I open my mouth, breathing out around the head. The sheets shift under me as he gathers them up in his fists. He's growling softly in his throat as I trace the veins up and down. There is no thought, just this world in the world here behind my hair. 

A sharp tug shivers down my spine. He has my hair tangled in his right hand, fingers showing no sign of loosening. I almost want to grin at him, but instead I watch him, circling the tip. His eyes glaze and I catch the underside between my teeth. His grip tightens around my hair, tugging upwards and I rise. 

His eyes are so black as he lays me down with a small push, settling himself between my legs so that he's pushing, hard and heavy against me and I swear to God I could come right now, letting him pin my arms against the wooden headboard. The more I press up against him the more he shifts just enough to keep me needing more. His mouth is still sinfully hot as he latches onto my nipple, flicking and teasing and scrapping his teeth across it. His stomach is hard and perfect to rub against until he slips away, his breath hot against me through the thick jeans.

And Holy God he's undoing them with his *teeth*. Pulling them off in a swift movement and throwing them across the room.

My poor fish Zoe is driven to her castle when a pant leg lands in the fish tank.

" Don't move." Using the last of the moisture in my mouth I lick my lips and grip the headboard, watching the wood grain as his breath and tongue and mouth slip across the insides of my thighs and further down…

Oh god, that shouldn't feel so sweet and rough and soft and wet and so fucking god good…

He's over me and pushing inside and I bite my lip, pushing out, letting him in and he moves once and the wood grains dance and my teeth sink though my lip. He moves, pushing in deeper and faster and licks the blood off of my lip.

And I'm done for.

It's funny how tears and sex go together. How soul pain and body pleasure can make the same sound. How something tragic can be beautiful.

How I can want this man very much…just because I know we'll never love each other.

" Thank you." It slips my lips as I stare at the crack in the plaster that used to look like a sleeping cat when I cared about dreaming shapes.

He's silent as sleep on my shoulder.


	8. 78 before he died

CHAPTER 8

You saw her bathing on the roof  
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

There's no time for awkward morning after's. We have to leave for the Burrow as soon as possible, leaving us just enough time to shower and dress. Percy is standing in the doorway, looking over the room with a bewildered, distant look in his eyes. I touch his shoulder, remembering how it looked in the midnight moonlight.

" Are you ready Percy?" The bag on the floor beside him is small, just enough for a few potion ingredients a change of clothes and a small square bulge in the front pocket.

" I…" His gaze falls on the fish tank. " Zoe! I can't leave Zoe!" He's kneeling beside the fish tank that's far to large for just one green and blue fighting fish. " Zoe has to come to mum's house and maybe Ginny would take care of it.."

" Percy, it's just a fish." He's grabbed up a plastic bag and is trying to scoop the fish up inside it. " Percy, your mother is going to worry soon.

" I can't leave Cameron's fish! I kept the stupid little shit alive this long…" The 'stupid little shit' in question is apparently offended and swims underneath the castle at the very bottom of the tank. " I'm not gonna let it die now!" He's pulling on the tank precariously, attention focused on just this one little fish. His teeth bite down on swollen lips. " GODDAMNIT ZOE JUST GET IN THE FUCKING BAG!" And he's curled on the floor, head resting on his knees as he sobs silently.

I take the bag from his fists and fill it with water. 

" Accio Zoe." If fish could look stunned, she would as she comes rushing up through the water and into the bag. A quick knot and she swimming around, bumping the walls and I'm sure her little fishy brain is thinking up many horrible fishy insults. " Here Percy." He wipes his eyes, looking up at me with blushing apologies on his lips. I want to touch his face and wipe away the tear traces, but I still feel his skin under my lips and palms and if I touch him I'll bend him back and fuck the tears from his eyes in a feeble attempt at lying to him. At telling him he won't lose his brother.

I turn away, holding the stupid fish and sling up the bag with the two changes of clothing.

" Come on Percy...your mum is probably worried sick." He stands, stepping up beside me in the doorway to shoulder his own pack.

" Obviously, but not about me." He walks out the door and his walk is different. Before the long strides were uncertain…always a second from hesitating. Now they're determined and it's so easy, and I wish I'd realized it before. 

He has no intention of ever coming back to this house. He's planning on going out and getting himself killed somehow. His wrist is in my hand before I think about it.

" You crazy little fuck…you can't…" He turns and his brown eyes are level with my own. Somehow I kept thinking of him as smaller than I am, just because he's younger than me, but here he is, a grown man and determined to die. " Christ." Oh god help us both… his mouth opens under me and I drop the fish on the couch, pushing him against the wall.

He sobs into my mouth and grabs at my shirt, twisting it tightly around my shoulders. 

" Stupid suicide missions are my job." I hold his face in my hands, trying to make him understand. " You don't need to kill yourself to save your brother…"

" He's my brother…he's _Ron_. I need to do everything I can." He brushes my lips with his softly. " But you're welcome to join _my_ suicide mission."

" Promise me a flashy exit and you've got a deal." I joke, tracing his face. I'm going to lose another person. Another mark on my tombstone.

__

(Sirius Black

1961-2001 

he took 78 people with him before he went)

His face closes in on itself.

" Something like that." He says softly. " Come on." He pushes away from the wall and picks up the fucking fish, standing near the fire and grabbing a bit of floo powder and tossing it into the fire. " The burrow!" Cradling the bag he steps into the whirling flames and is gone. I look around at the house one last time and even though it isn't my house…it's like leaving home all over again.

" The burrow."

I step out, rubbing soot from my nose and look across the painfully bleak faces of the Weasleys. Percy in the middle, trying to kiss and hold them all at once. Their voices are a million questions all at once and he understands everyone of them.

" Yes, I'm going for Ron…mum you knew I would…no Bill I can't take you, because I can't…Ginny, I want you to take care of Cam's fish for me while I'm gone. Her name's Zoe…Mum, don't cry. Fred, I'll need some of whatever you and George are working on. No Charlie, you can't come either. I don't care if you're older than me. God, I love you too." I step back into the shadow of the hearth, looking out over the gardens surrounding the burrow. A snidget flies amongst a flock of ruby throated hummingbirds. 

" Hello Sirius."

" Arthur." He stands beside me, his face lined, and temples gray. Briefly I wonder if I've grown gray myself. It seems like a life like mine should have colored my hair whiter than Malfoy's , but somehow I know it's still black. 

" We had heard you…"

" I was. Remus too." He puts a hand on my shoulder. 

" Charlie's rider squad burnt that camp a month ago. They buried him at Hogwarts." My knees are water under me. A month. A month ago…I want to grab Percy by the back of his neck and shake him. How long was I sick? How long before that did I wander? What happened to time? He gives me a squeeze. " Come sit down Sirius. Molly has leftovers from breakfast and you look like a shot couldn't hurt either."

" Thank you Arthur." I weave in and out of milling Weasleys, taking a seat at the table and beginning to chew on a piece of toast.

" Sirius…" I look over at Arthur. " Do you think…?

" The boys are alive?" I take a long swallow of the whiskey he pours me. " Yes. Harry because if they had such a great prize, they'd have done him like they did Remus and Ron because I think they may have plans for him." Arthur takes a long drink himself.

" Percy's made up his mind to go, hasn't he?" He doesn't wait for me to ansewer. " I didn't bring my children here so I could trade one for another, but I think the worst thing Sirius is that I can't feel the type of bone deep remorse at the thought of Percy dying as I can at the thought of losing Ron." I look at the man and tears are standing in his eyes. " I love my son, don't you ever doubt that, but Ron has a life ahead of him and Percy….Percy hasn't really been alive since Hogwarts and some times I wonder if really it would all be a relief for him." There's a prickling on the back of my neck. The one that always signifies someone having overheard something they didn't want to. I look up and Percy is slipping out the garden door. Arthur throws another shot back. " He was behind me, wasn't he?"

" Yeah…he was."

" I'll mess it up if I talk to him, it'll just be worse…it was always worse when I tried to talk to him…we never got on as well, Percy and I…I never understood him the way I did the others." I have a feeling that the man didn't begin drinking when I arrived.

" I can.." He grabs my wrists.

" You can't bring both my sons back to me, can you?" His mossy eyes are bloodshot and I want to tell him I can, but I can't make a sound. A tear spills under the wire frames of his specs. " Then please…don't let them hurt him. I'd rather you kill him yourself then let them get him." He buries his head in his arms on the long oak table. " God…if they take him…kill him." 

Percy is in the gardens, tossing a tomato up and down.

" You know…I absolutely abhor tomatoes. Father used to make me eat them anyway during the dark times cause they were all we had. He's fucking right." The red fruit flies from his hands, exploding in a wet pulp on the wall. " Ron loves them though." His head lolls backwards so suddenly it connects with the stonewall behind him. He doesn't even wince, instead he begins beating his head in a dull thudding rhythm. " I hate it when he's right cause he's always right about the bad things…I'm not really alive anymore, I've been existing." He looks me in the eye, stopping the hollow thud of flesh on stone. " But I want you to know…I was alive last night." 

" Percy…" I hate words...I was always so bad with them. Remus was always the eloquent one. I give him my hand, pulling him to his feet.

" We're leaving in the morning." His voice is hollow. " I just need..you know..I wanna see my family…" His voice breaks and he slumps against me, sobbing tearlessly.

We painted this room a week after I moved in. We chose this stupid yellow because it made us laugh and never painted over it. We had our first argument right there in the doorway of the bathroom and I broke my first mirror throwing my shoe at you.

I'll never see any of this again.

I have our picture in my bag, but I'm forgetting something.

" Are you ready Percy?" I barely hear him as I look over at Zoe swimming placidly around her tank, attacking the offending trouser leg still hanging inside her tank.

" Zoe!" He brought home the stupid little fish after our third month here together. I managed to keep it alive all this time." I can't leave Zoe! Zoe has to come to mum's house and maybe Ginny would take care of it.." I'm reaching into the tank with a plastic bag, trying to scoop her inside. She swims around and around and Sirius is trying to tell me to leave her here to die and I can't cause she was Cam's and I'm leaving his house and everything else of his to fate…I can't kill his fish. It makes no sense but the very thought of letting the thing die hurts. " I can't leave Cameron's fish! I kept the stupid little shit alive this long…" And of course Zoe swims under her fucking little plastic castle. " I'm not gonna let it die now!" But I can't stop it. " GODDAMNIT ZOE JUST GET IN THE FUCKING BAG!" She's gonna die and Ron's gonna die…I let the bag fall in the water and curl up beside the tank

Sirius doesn't even think about it. A stupid summoning charm and Zoë's swimming around the bag and I look like a fool.

" Here Percy." I wipe my eyes and look at him, ready to stumble out apologies. His eyes pity and possess me before he turns away, slinging up his bag. " Come on Percy, your mum must be worried sick."

" Obviously, but not about me." I shoulder the bag and I refuse to look back. No last glances at the way the morning sun hit's the bed, or how our photo album is still open on the coffee table in the den. I'm so close to making the perfect clean cut goodbye when Sirius grabs my wrist desperately, pulling me back.

" You crazy little fuck…you _can't_… Christ." He's pinned me to the wall and his mouth is hot and sweet and a lone sob manages to escape. His shirt twists round in my hands. Pulling back he takes my face roughly in his hands.

" Stupid suicide missions are _my_ job." His eyes burn and it feels like he's trying to climb inside my skull and find out everything I have planned out so carefully. " You don't need to kill yourself to save your brother." Of all the things to do…I smile.

" He's my brother...he's _Ron_. I need to do everything I can." He gives me a despairing look and I lean forward, touching my lips to his. He gives me a half grin. 

" Promise me a flashy exit and you've got a deal." 

Flashy…you have no idea Sirius.

" Something like that. Come on." I grab Zoe off the couch and throw floo powder into the fire. " The Burrow!" 

I won't look back. I won't look back. I won't look at our kitchen on den or gardens… I step into the flames without looking back.

I wish I had.

There's no time to breath or think, just my family. The surging crush of limbs and warmth and hugs and kisses. I haven't had my entire family around me for a year…not since Hogwarts. George speaks first.

" You're going for Ron?"

" Yes, I'm going for Ron!" Mum begins to sob and protest. " Mum, you knew I would."

" I'm going with you." Bill tells me calmly, gripping my arms tightly. I shudder at the thought of dragging any of my family into hell with me.

" No Bill, I can't take you." He begins to protest. " Because I can't!" I cut off his protests, thrusting Zoe towards Ginny. " Ginny, I want you to take care of Cam's fish for me, her name's Zoe… Mum don't cry!" I pull her to me, and her head just fits under my chin. The twins look at me, offering silent help. The twins…silent. This war truly is hell. " Fred, I'll need some of whatever you and George are working on." I hate to ask, they could get tried for treason if anything they're working on gets captured by the death eaters. They don't hesitate to nod. Charlie tries to insist that I take him if not Bill and I can't. I won't…I can't breathe as he crushes my face in his shoulder.

" Be careful Perc. Love ya." He mutters.

" God, I love you too." Out of the corner of my eye I see my father approaching Sirius, leading him into the kitchen. Finally they let me go enough to sink of the couch and look at them all. Ginny's all grown up. I don't know why this strikes me so hard…it's not some new fact, I was in the first row when she graduated salutatorian, but it's like I never really noticed that my baby sister wasn't a baby anymore. She's twenty-one now. She's a woman and a lady and if things go right I'll never see her again. I get up and hold her as tightly as I can.

" Do you know, sometimes it felt like the only person who ever understood me was you?" I whisper in her ear. " I used to tell you secrets in your bassinet and you'd just look at me like y0u understood. I'm sorry I stopped writing." She squeezes me tightly, Zoë's bag cool on my back.

" I love you too. I'll miss you Percy." Her kiss is hot on my cheek as she lets me go. " Go see Dad." I take another look at them and back down the hall, towards the kitchen, turning to peer in the doorway to see Dad drinking and talking to Sirius..

" I can't feel the type of bone deep remorse at the thought of Percy dying as I can at the thought of losing Ron." I wasn't moving, so I can't stop dead. I just stand there, eavesdropping like a naughty child. " I love my son, don't you ever doubt that, but Ron has a life ahead of him and Percy….Percy hasn't really been alive since Hogwarts and some times I wonder if really it would all be a relief for him." 

My soul twinges. What a stupid word. Twinge. I walk out into the garden, deciding that I definitely hate the word twinge. It's so stupid sounding. I sit against the wall and pick a large tomato, throwing it and catching it again and again. Such a deep red color, it's a shame they taste so horrid. Sirius appears in the garden doorway, looking at me with shadows in his eyes.

" You know…I absolutely abhor tomatoes. Father used to make me eat them anyway during the dark times cause they were all we had. Ron loves them though." I let the stupid fruit fly, bursting against the wall in a red pulp. "He's fucking right." I let the back of my head bounce against the stone wall again and again, setting a rhythm for my words. " I hate it when he's right cause he's always right about the bad things...I'm not really alive anymore…I've been existing." I want to tell him that I thought that was the way to be though. That existing wasn't that bad, but it was and is. I look him in the eye, letting my head finally rest against the granite. " I want you to know, I was alive last night."

" Percy…" He begins and never finishes. He just looks at me for a long moment and gives me his hand, pulling me off the ground and to my feet.

" We're leaving first thing in the morning. I just need…you know…I wanna see my family…" He wraps his arms around me as I lean against him, shoulders hitching in tearless sobs. 


	9. Dawn's light on bone knifes

CHAPTER 9

Maybe there's a God above, all I ever learned from love

Was how to shoot at someone who out drew you

It's not yet dawn when I follow Percy out of the back garden gate and towards the pond. He stops and stares down into the glassy surface.

" Cam's grandmother taught him this trick. It works best in a place tied to the person you're trying to find." He stares intently at the water, pulling a small knife out of his pocket along with a small packet made from a handkerchief and a half bottle of dark rum. Uncorking the bottle with his teeth he spits the cork over his left shoulder and unties the package, dumping the finely powdered herbs into the rum. the air is lightening as he switches the rum bottle to his left hand, taking the small sharp knife and slicing the skin above the mouth of the bottle, letting the blood run into the rum. Throwing the knife over his left shoulder he crosses himself turns around three times to his right and as the first light touches the pond he tips the bottle to his mouth and sprays the thick liquid out onto the waters surface. 

For a moment the water roils before swirling into a small black pool. Inside a flash of red catches my eye. Ron, lanky, battered, bloodied and...smiling at the feet of a woman, her black eyes almost unnaturally large as Ron and ...oh lord, Harry stare into them, entranced by the low humming that echoes weakly through the small mirror. Spinning around three more times he upends the bottle above the water and for a moment in the splash I see a familiar grove of trees before the full sunlight touches the entire pond and the water is still again. He sighs and pushes his hair back from his eyes.

" That isn't Devon." With a growl he throws the bottle deep into the pond. " Where did they take him if not Devon!?"

" I know where he is." Of course I know where he is. You only find those trees one place in the world. " They've taken A'lat." Percy looks at me.

" But...that island is unplotable. They'd have to know right where it was, they would have had to capture a native." I take a seat on the damp grass.

" They did, weeks ago." My stomach roils with disgust at the thought that I've allowed Death Eaters to my home. That somehow during the endless time they had me and hurt me, they raped my mind and took my home. He sits next to me, eyes locked with mine.

" Sirius, we've got too much riding on this to play inference games. Are you telling me you're A'latian?" I nod. " Well...that's a bloody fuck all." He stands and kicks a rock into the water. " How in the hell am I supposed to get to A'lat?"

" I'm sure I could apperate with you Percy." I'm not sure actually, but it's our best bet. He scoffs at me.

" You could not. not over a distance that big. Just...tell me where it is."

" That's it...I can't. We all know where it is...but none of us can put it on a map. The only thing I could possibly tell you is that it's between Crete and Alexandria." 

" Atlantis really was a bridge country then?" I nod. 

" Yes. And then there was the destruction and then... all that was left was Crete and A'lat." Percy frowns at me before reaching up and grabbing my hair, tugging out several strands. " Ouch! What in the hell are you doing?" He weaves them into a braid, twining them around the small cross on his necklace.

" Port key. It'll take me directly to you instead of a destination." He mutters offhandedly, the gold jewelry in his hand glowing softly as he enchants it. " There." He gives the cross a small satisfied smile as he slips it over his head and touches it. there's a small flash and he's in my lap, smiling smugly. " It works. Are you ready?" He clambers off me as I nod.

" But Percy...what do you have planned for getting them out?" He gives me a small smile and touches the bag at his back. 

" The twins are quite the demolition experts. I have enough explosive potions, enchanted objects and destructive gadgets to take out two death eater camps. I thought we might get the layout, find where the guys are, get them out and then go back and destroy the camp."

" Because where Harry is, Voldemort will be there too. We can take out the heart of the Dark side!" My excitement is a cool rush as I stand. He nods with satisfaction. " the apperation takes a while. Give me ten minutes before you port over or I'll splinch us together." His nose wrinkles in distain at the thought and he touches my face, kissing me quickly. 

" Don't get caught." I step away from him and close my eyes. " Wait a moment...how will you apperate, you don't have a wand..." His words slip away in a whirl of wind as I slip sideways into apperation, transversing the dark, endless yet confining darkness that's outside space and time.

It's barely five in the morning hen I slip from between the sheets, slipping into cold denim and a stiff shirt. There's only that eerie silver half light that tends to linger before dawn, but it's enough to gleam off the white of my handkerchief and the blade of a small bone handled knife. 

I don't even have to see the smooth ivory surface to know where every groove of every finger from generations of Cam's family rests. My fingers slide over the marks made by slaves and priestesses and immigrants. Grips worn down in secret in the shadows of plantation houses in the heat of southern America, grooves deepened in the cold of Irelands winter.

It fits snugly in my hand. A reassurance that the magic in it is stronger then the books and potions at Hogwarts. That is comes from love and pain and from the heart. 

The bottle of rum fits snugly in my pocket. Sirius is already at the table when I slip into the kitchen, sipping at a mug of coffee. He leaves the cup steaming on the table to follow me out into the garden across the slippery grasses and through the silver shadows to stand at the edge of the pond. It's glassy smooth surface is perfect. The crisp spring breeze smells different from the thick humid air of North Carolina where I last saw this done.

" Cam's grandmother taught him this trick." If I close my eyes I can still see her, coal black hair in a long braid coiled around her head, standing at the edge of the murky river where their entire family had been baptized for years. " It works best in a place tied to the person you're trying to find.

I don't even have to close my eyes now to see her, ankle deep in the murky waters, the green plants twitching suspiciously as long dark shapes glide through them. Cam standing in the water on one side, skin glowing with the slightest silver light from the predawn, his cousin blending effortlessly into the dim shadows on the other, watching the water for the vicious deadly snakes that swam through it.

I pull the rum from my pocket along with her knife and the herbs, the last batch Nana ground for us. The cork is thick and musty tasting between my teeth as I pull it out, spitting it over my left shoulder. It disappears into the pale grass. 

Nana's flew into the fragrantly thick intertwining of honeysuckle, kudzu, and morning glories almost two yards behind her.

The powdered herbs slip into the narrow neck of the bottle. Inside the liquor roil for a moment and is still except for the cloying and intoxicating scent rising from the bottle. 

The old woman sang a bit here and I know I could never call the same power she did, even if I knew the words. Musical magic, soul magics were never taught at Hogwarts. It could disrupt the spell. I bow my head instead.

" Cam, Nana, little help here?" I'm running out of time as the sun creeps closer and closer towards peering over the edge of the land. I place the thin sharp blade against the inside of my palm, cutting quickly. The blood drips slowly into the bottle and the scent wafting from it is deeper than before. A mix of the same smoky sweet smells of Nana's spells and a sharper undertone of fresh England breezes. I throw the knife over my left shoulder and cross myself with my bloody hand, spinning three times to my right. 

The entire family should be here, singing. It's just myself and a befuddled audience of one as I tip the neck to my mouth and take the thick/sweet/bitter/poison rum past my lips, spraying it past my teeth and onto the pond as light touches the water.

For a moment I'm so still, afraid it didn't work. My tongue licks the last drops of the thick liquid from my lips. It tastes of sex and pain and all the knowledge you can only learn from pain. The things no one wants to teach you. 

The water swirls and parts.

Ron, my brother curled onto a hard stone floor, blue eyes glazed as he stares up through matted, bloody hair in adoration at the vacant eyed, dark skinned girl who rocks back and forth, singing softly to my brother and…Harry. Harry sitting there, twice as beaten and battered and smiling just as stupidly as my brother despite the chains binding them to the floors and walls. 

Thank God they're alive.

The scent and taste of the rum is starting to seep to my head as I spin three more times to the left, upending the bottle directly into the center of the swirling vision. In the center of the splash is a grove of trees, their limbs thick and twisted as a Joshua tree, but with leaves as thick as amazon foliage, thick vines wrapping up around them to form a small secluded clearing.

The splash settles as the sun shines fully on the water and the vision is gone.

My hair is poking me in the eye. It hurts. I shove it back with rough hands. My mind is blank. I can't think of anything rational to say, so I speak my mind.

" That's not Devon." With a growl I hurl the bottle as far across the pond as I can. It makes it to the edge of the other bank before sinking into the deep clear waters. Of course it isn't Devon. Those trees, already a deep lush green this early must be close to if not on the equator. Not in fucking England where even Spring wants to hide from the war. " Where did they take him if not Devon!?"

" I know where he is." Sirius speaks for the first time today, his voice hollow and grave. " They've taken A'lat." He sits gingerly on the slightly less damp grass as I stare at him.

" But that Island is unplotable. They'd have to know right where it was… they would have to capture a native." He stares over the water and the rum/potion burns my veins from the inside and it hurts so good. I sit beside him, plucking the blade out of the grass, remembering how it had landed at my feet in the thick hot morning to become mine. Cam had been so proud. His voice cuts through my objection.

" They did. Weeks ago." I look at him and in the light his hair and eyes are the same deep shade of black as the girl in the spell. He meets my eyes.

" Sirius, we have too much riding on this for inference games. Are you telling me you're A'latian?" Of course he isn't. It's a stupid question cause why would anyone from A'lat come to bloody England. He nods and I just…look at him. " Well…that's a bloody fuck all." The calmness in my voice disturbs even me, so I rise and punt a rock into the pond. It skips across the water twice and sinks. " How in the hell am I supposed to get to A'lat!?"

" I'm sure I could apperate with you Percy…" His voice trails off as I shoot him the look and scoff.

" You could not. Not over a distance that big." It's almost painfully stupid and not very Sirius-like to suggest such a thing. Something is tearing at him ." Just...tell me where it is."

" That's it...I can't. We all know where it is...but none of us can put it on a map. The only thing I could possibly tell you is that it's between Crete and Alexandria." In my mind I can see all the maps from my theories of Magical countries and their evolutions class.

" Atlantis really was a bridge country then?" He nods. 

" Yes. And then there was the destruction and then…" He gestures half heartedly with his hands. "All that was left was Crete and A'lat."

The petulant part of me, the one that whines at the idea of coming so far and not being able to continue wants to call him a liar. It wants to protest that if Death Eaters could torture it out of him he could tell me so I could help him get revenge, so I could save my brother. The rest of me quite calmly steps on that little voice. Death Eaters have methods that nightmares can't rival. Instead I reach over and twirl my fingers in his hair, yanking. He yelps and curses as I unravel the hairs from my fingers, twining them into a braid and weaving them around the golden cross I wear tucked under my collar. I ansewer him offhandedly, concentrating on the subtle patterns in the air my wand makes, watching the slight trails it leaves. Professor Lupin was fairly sure this would work when we were working together…we were days away from trying it. 

" There." I slip it back over my head and it's warm against my skin. My hand trembles as I lift it to the metal. If we were wrong they'll be finding pieces of me in America. 

I touch the port key.

And end up in Sirius' lap and allow myself the smug smile that quite frankly I deserve. My ass is _not_ in America without me. " It works. Are you ready?" I crawl off him and he stands, his movements almost hesitant

" Percy…what do you have planed for getting them out?" I smile at him, lightly rubbing the worn in leather of the satchel in my hands.

" The twins are quite the demolition experts. I have enough explosive potions, enchanted objects and destructive gadgets to take out two death eater camps. I thought we might get the layout, find where the guys are, get them out and then go back and destroy the camp."

Sirius' eyes gleam with an unholy fire.

" And where Harry is Voldemort will be…we can take out the heart of the dark side!" I give him a nod as he leaps to his feet. " Give me ten minutes before you port over or I'll splinch us together." My nose draws up at the very thought. My hand trembles slightly as I reach up and touch his face, kissing him quickly.

" Don't get caught." He steps back from me and closes his eyes and my gaze falls on his empty hands. " Hey! How are you going to apperate without a wand…" My words die off as with a subtle shift, like stepping sideways into nothing, he's gone.

Ten minutes goes very slowly.


	10. Dresdonaire

CHAPTER 10

There was a time you let me know

I don't have to open my eyes to know I'm home. The sea scent on warm air sweeps through the trees. I don't open my eyes though. I don't want to open them and see that my world has changed. That the dark mark lies over the old capitol ruins or that the white sands have blood in them.

Percy will be here any moment. I open my eyes. From the thick leaves a small shiny pair of black eyes in a round olive face watches me with interest. Tiny hands part the bushes with no fear and a small girl pokes her head through, thick shining gold encircling her slender throat and dangling from her ears. I smile at her, a vision of home in her tiny vividly orange dress.

I kneel down, smiling at her as she walks out of the bushes and ten minutes runs out. With a crash I'm face down in the dirt, Percy's foot in my rib and the shrieking laughter of more then one child in my ears. With a few muttered curses Percy rolls off of me, brushing himself off and I pull my face from the ground. 

There are three of them, two boys and a girl, none older then ten and they all crowd around us, staring at Percy's hair and me.

" He looks like one of us." The boy's heavy accent is sweet in the ears. " But what's with the Paccea?" I stifle a snort in the grass, standing.

" Does your madae let you speak like that?" A blush crosses his face and he opens his mouth to protest when a woman voice carries desperately through the twisting moss and vines secluding us from the outside.

" Thalia!! Lysander!! Epifiano!!" I know that voice. Almost twenty years and that voice is the same as it was when she was seventeen. She comes running thorough the hanging greenery, sarong tied low on her hips, thick golden brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail. Her eyes are still the same color as the ocean as she dashes between us and them, wand in one hand, A black bladed knife in the other, the light glinting off it's deadly curve. She bares her teeth as she spits a long string of curses at Percy in a mixture of Greek and the old tongue, threatening to turn his insides into his outsides and drape them across the Paccea camp where the others can see them and then…. I wince as she begins telling me what she intends to do with my body parts.

" Massiah… My…it's Sirius." Her wand never wavers as she jerks the blade towards Percy. Who is wisely keeping his hands palm out in front of him. 

" Sirius Black is dead." A small shudder runs through me at the way she says my name, not quite Cyrus, not quite Sirius, something in between. I turn my head so that the vulnerable skin of my neck is bared at her.

" Move my hair, right there at the base of my neck and shoulder is a scar from where you were learning to throw knives and I moved. You wouldn't talk to me for a month cause you were angry at yourself." Her wand hand flicks to the left and my hair blows back. Her lips ease themselves out of the hard line for a moment.

" Okay, Sirius…If you weren't dead, why in the name of the temples didn't you ever come home?"

" I did. I hid in the old capitol for a year." She shoves the knife in a sheath and glowers at me.

" You…simple bastard!" She launches herself at me, arms tight around my waist as she embraces me. I'd forgotten how small Massi was. Her nose fits against my solar plexus. Her curses are mixed with endearments now as she steps back, eyeing Percy with a smirk. " Who's the Paccea?" 

"This is Percy Weasley. He's here to help me with something." I shoot her a look, cutting to the children with my eyes. She nods, stepping back and wrapping her arm around the oldest boy.

" Siri…this is Epifiano, " She lightly tousles the hair of the middle boy, "Lysander, and Thalia, my children." She turns a glare on them that makes the girl pull her shirt over her eyes. " My children who are in a lot of duwa when I get them home." Thalia peers with one eye out of her shirt.

" Madae shouldn't cuss." 

" You're madae will say whatever she wants. Look at you three! You're on the edge of the jungle! We're going home right now!" She turns them in the direction of the town. " Come on Sirius and bring…Percy with you." She rolls the R's in his name out, lengthening it just enough to make the man next to me shiver.

" I love it when she does that." He follows me unresistingly as my hand catches the crook of his arm, pulling him out into yards of jungle that separate the old roads from the new town. He looks at me with a sardonic eyebrow when we step into the sunlight half an hours walk later.

" That was the _edge_ of the jungle?" Massi hears him and turns, flashing him a teasing smirk. 

" Of course. Don't they have trees in England?" His eyes are wide and earnest as he lifts a hand, fingers stroking over the pale green petals of a blossom the size of a dinner plate.

" Nothing like this." His hair blazes in the sunlight, glowing gold and bronze and copper and rippling like lava in the wind. I can't resist putting my hands to it, slipping my fingers through it. He shifts his head so that there's the slightest tension against his skull when I pull my hands free. 

Why didn't I leave England when I had the chance and brought Remus home with me? Why do I have to bring Percy here to die, when the awe on his face as he stares over the crystalline blue green oceans and gold and marble ruins, twisted through with overgrowth, shows so clearly he hasn't lost his will to live yet. 

Thalia breaks my reverie, pulling on Massi's sarong.

" Madae, he has fire hair! Look!" Her smile is wide as she picks the girl up, sitting her against her hip.

" Yes Darling. He has red hair."

" Can I touch it?" Her chubby hands stretch out as far as they can reach for Percy's hair. Massi thwarts her with a half step back, turning her feet back on the road.

" You can ask him when we get back home…" Her voice trails off as a flock of large white ibis' take flight with loud screeching cries. " It's them." Quickly I grab up her oldest boy.

" Percy, get the other one. Death Eaters are coming." The child isn't even settled in his arms before we're tearing across the grasses towards the bend in the road where the road begins to climb sharply up a rocky ledge towards the plateau where the town lies. Percy is panting lightly when we reach the rocks, urging the children up a steep path.

" Is now a bad time to mention I never played Quidditch because I can't stand heights?" He hisses, watching the children scramble among the rocks, climbing up and up.

" Very bad time as we have _no_ time." He takes a deep, trembling breath and follows Massi on the path, hands gripping tightly to every rock he passes. We're sixty feet in the air when the path ends and Massi gathers up the trailing skirt, trying it safely around her legs and reaches up, beginning to climb up the last fifteen feet of rock wall. I can hear her children running towards the town gates, screeching in the old tongue. Percy's hands shake as he reaches for a rock too far down. 

" Shh." I take his hand in my own, reaching up and stretching us both full length against the wall. " This one." He shivers beneath me. " Now lift your left foot as high as you can and there's a crack there." He gets himself wedged firmly in and pushes up, eyes trained determinedly on a crack a few feet up for his right hand. Several moments of tenseness and I can hear his breath of relief as he throws himself over the edge of the cliff face onto the grass. I follow Percy's path quickly, rolling onto the grass and then to my feet. Massi's already halfway to the gates. Percy's legs almost give out on him as he takes a step before he scowls and pushes off from a sprinters position, long legs flying to catch up to Massi and myself. Just inside the gates his legs _do _give out and he stumbles, going down and flipping once before rolling onto his back, shoulders heaving and face pale. 

I kneel down beside him.

" Sirius Black… I hate you." He mutters. " I hate your cliffs and your shortcuts, and the way your road goes from large cobblestones to bloody fucking small ones!" It's so hard not to laugh at him as I ease him up, touching him gently to make sure he isn't hurt. He shivers in my arms as he comes down off the fear and adrenalin but nothing is broken. Blood is seeping rapidly through his pants leg however. I pull on them when he grabs my hand, grinning at me. " Skinned knee." At the fountain Massi is talking to half a dozen men, pointing towards where the birds had taken flight and gesturing towards Percy and myself. I over hear my name and the older men go still before one runs off towards the center of the town.

And then she's there and I thought I'd never see her again.

" Madae?" Her black hair had a long streak of white at both temples and the laugh lines at her eyes and cheeks have deepened, but her voice is the same as it ever was.

" Sirius." She comes over and I bury my face in her stomach, holding her as tightly as I dare. Her hands flit like ghosts over my hair, muttering reassurances and love as she gestures to Percy, giving orders about food and medical attention to be sent to our home. People scurry to comply and it strikes me that my mother, regardless of how she looks is almost a hundred now. That would make her a member of the Madae Tokana. She runs the town now.

" Madae…" I thought I had forgotten much of my native tongue but it's all there as I apologize for years…decades of mistakes. She steps back, pulling me to my feet.

" Bring your friend and come home Sirius. We have so much to say before you go again." Percy stands beside me, eyes wide as he looks my mother in the eye. She smiles at him before turning, leading us back through the town. 

Home is exactly what it was when I left. The villa is grown over with flowering vines and thick mosses. The arch of the entryway dangles thick sweet grapes so dark they're black. I grab a handful from the top, popping them into my mouth and swallowing the thick sweet warm juices. Beside me Percy gives a small moan of appreciation as he follows my example. 

Beside the door beta as large as koi swim placidly in swirls of jewel rich color. My mother rushes us down the hall towards where the master bedroom once was. Inside the large silvery wood that made their bed soaks up the sunlight.

" You both need to rest." Her voice is warm but tired as she backs towards the door. " tonight will be busy. Your cousin has taken her bad children home, but the entire family will be here tonight and they'll all want to know what you're planning." She hesitates in the door before rushing back forward and pressing her lips to my cheeks and forehead. " I am so glad you came home."

The bed is soft and warm in the sunshine as I lay back, toeing off my boots. Percy is sitting on the edge, staring off over the water. I crawl up behind him and stare down past the depths of clarity to the large sprawling shadows of black there, the silhouette of the remains of the great city that had sprawled on the other side of the jungles.

" What is the actual plan anyways? I know you Percy. You've got more planned than run in, blow it up, grab the boys, run away, run back and blow it up some more." His muscles are tight where I lean against him.

" You're right. Most the things in that bag are just for distraction in getting in and out. The rest are ingredients."

" Ingredients?" He nods, pulling the leather satchel onto the bed and pulling out several vile looking potions and a few vials of assorted powdered substances.

" Yeah. Dresdeniare takes quite a bit of stuff." My stomach clenches and I don't know why.

" Dresdenaire?" He nods, setting up a portable cauldron by the window and laying out the various tools and potions on the old desk where my Father used to write his letters back to his family and friends in England. " Percy…I've never heard of any spell called…" He shoots me a look, cutting me off.

" Of course you haven't. Technically Dresdenaire doesn't exist." 

" The bomb curse." The still sweet after taste of the grapes goes bitter and mossy in my mouth. " You know the bomb curse."

" Actually it's a mixed spell, part curse, part potion and considering that I helped invent it…yeah, I know it." For a moment I think I might actually vomit. The bile rises in my throat and my stomach gives several good attempts to empty itself. My minds eye is trained on the images of the smoldering rubble that Hogwarts was when the rescue wizards apparated in. My stomach gives another vicious heave at the memory of the smell of burning stone and flesh and then they drug Remus from the rubble where Hagrid's hut had been, freeing him from under the protective bulk of the half giant. 

And Percy had helped do it all.

" You…" He turns on me with a sardonic grin that's more like a snarl.

" Yes Sirius. I did it. I helped blow up Hogwarts, I helped us start losing the war, I helped kill my lover and I didn't do it alone." His deep brown eyes are wide as the blood drains from his face and he turns back to the cauldron, adding things and saying incantations in a shaky voice.

" Remus. You and Remus and Cam…worked together on this didn't you?" His hands tremble as he silently adds an entire vial of powdered ash winder eggs from the color and scent. In a rush I'm off the bed, his wrists in my hands as I pin him to the wall. I'm snarling down at him and his tears and I don't care because he knows things that I need to know. " Didn't you?"

" Not for all of it. We'd just started working with Professor Lupin on the theory of a trigger word for the spell."

" But why?!" He shoves me off and I'm reminded all over again that he's not small or fragile as I land on the thick carpet.

" Don't be so fucking sodding stupid! Why do you think?! We were working with the ministry! Every fucking one of us. We were doing all of it's most dangerous work inside what should have been the safest place in England and the curse was the most challenging and dangerous thing they were working on."

" But how in the fuck did you plan on using it?!" Percy shrugs, going back to his mixing with .

" Never even thought of it until after Hogwarts when I realized they were planning on doing the same thing the Death Eaters did to us. Capturing spies, getting information out of them and then sending them back to kill entire camps, prisoners and all…but don't worry." His hand is fast and his wand movements intricate as it dances through the thick smoke before it slips out of the window. " Dresdenaire dies on this island."

The port key pulls me sharply through space and then Sirius is under me, sprawled on the lush green grasses and the laughter of children echoing in sweet warm air. I'm over dressed. I can already feel the beginnings of a fine line of sweat forming in the back of my collar. I roll off Sirius, getting to my feet and brushing the dirt from my trousers. In front of us are three children, their skin a bronzed tan giggle and actually jump around with amusement. A small girl in a bright orange dress takes a half step towards us and is grabbed backwards in a protective grip by the oldest boy who cocks his head in the direction of Sirius, still sprawled on the grass and, for some reason, in no hurry to stand.

" He looks like one of us...but what about the Paccea?" He gestures towards me, spitting out the word in three contemptuous but oddly pleasant sounding syllables. Pa-K-uh. Sirius snorts laughingly into the grass and stands slowly.

" Does your Madae let you speak like that?" The child hangs his head slightly in embarrassment, blushing. I want to ask Sirius exactly what a Paccea _is,_ when a low sweet voice carries beseechingly through the thick circle of trees.

" Thalia!! Lysander!! Epifiano!!" As one the children wince and a woman comes running out into the clearing. Her eyes aren't the same glittering black as the children, but a deep aquamarine, hair the color of light mahogany framing a heart shaped face. 

And then how pretty she appears is of very little consequence as she has a wand in one hand and in the other hand, much closer to me is a knife, long bladed and black. The sun glints off an apparently razor sharp curve.

Her voice is rough and angry as she spits a low musically alternating mix of what could possibly be Greek and a low sibilant language I can't even begin to identify at me. Beside me Sirius pales a bit, keeping his hands palms upward and facing her. 

I think I should be glad I don't know what she's saying.

" Massiah. My, it's me, It's Sirius." His voice is coaxing and he moves ever so slightly towards her.

That blade is a lot shinier this close to me.

" Sirius Black is dead." Her accent makes his name a small song. Sa-RE-us. He shivers slightly, turning his head towards me so that the side of his throat is bared to her. Already his words are taking on the same musical lit of hers, slipping back into his native accent ever so slightly.

" If you move my hair right there at the base of my neck and shoulder is a scar from where you were learning to throw knives and I moved." Slowly her face relaxes as he continues to tell her the story, the animal fierceness slipping into a more wary expression. Her lips are very full as her mouth slips out of tight line of a snarl and into a semi pout as she waves her wand, blowing the hair from his face. Yep, there's the scar…and there's a bite mark around it. Oh, _that_ scar.

Her expressions remind me of Ginny.

" Okay…_Sirius_." Her voice is a mix of hope and disbelief and the knife is still far to close to me. " If you weren't dead why in the name of the temples didn't you ever come home?" He straightens up slowly, and actually smiles at her.

" I did. I hid in the old capitol for a year." Her knife arm tenses and I take a deep breath before she shoves the blade in a small sheath underneath the flowing blue and green fabric she has wrapped around her hips and hurls herself against him, cursing him in English and the same tongue as before. Against him the top of her head just barely reaches his shoulder. Funny, standing there she looked a lot bigger.

But maybe that was the idea of a messy demise talking.

Stepping back she shoots me a smirk, eyes cutting quickly from his neck to my mouth.

" Who's the Paccea?" I lift an eyebrow at her and her term.

" This is Percy Weasley." The overwhelming urge to kick him in the ankle comes from nowhere. Shouldn't he insist I'm not a …whatever that is? Then again, maybe it's all in the way you say it.

In that case she's called me something tremendously dirty.

They exchange a look as he stresses that I'm here to help him with something, his eyes straying to the children. She steps back, wrapping her arm around the tallest boy who's head rests under her chin.

" Siri, this is Epifiano," She reaches out to run her fingers through the smaller boy's hair. " Lysander and Thalia, my children." She hardly looks old enough to have a boy who must be at least ten. Her proud half smile gives way to a glare and the girl pulls the neck of her dress up over her eyes. Oh yes, she's definitely their mother. Only a mother can give that kind of glare. " My children," She continues " Who are in a lot of duwa when I get them home." The girl peers one eye from her dress.

" Madae shouldn't cuss." She whispers. The corner of the woman's mouth twitches.

" Your Madae will say whatever she wants. Look at you three!" Any humor she may have had is gone. " You're almost on the edge of the jungle! We're going home right now!" She turns them towards a random gap in the trees and gives them a little shove, looking over her shoulder at us. " Come on Sirius and bring," She seems stuck on my name for a moment. " Percy with you." I shiver a bit as she rolls out the R in my name just long enough. Sirius laughs, taking my arm and leading me out of the circle into a forest so thick I can't see the sky.

" I love it when she does that." His face is striped in thick shadows and small rays of sunlight as he stands there for a moment, taking a deep breath before leading me out through close to a mile of thick jungle.

When we step out of it I lift my eyebrow, giving him a look.

" That was the _edge_ of the jungle?" In front of us the woman stops and gives me a small smirk, a true smile teasing the corners of her mouth.

" Of course. Don't they have trees in England?" She teases. I look over at a limb of wood so deep red it's almost purple with it's thick glossy leaves as big as a sheet of parchment and a blossom of pale white with light green undertones. It's as big as a dinner plate as I run my hands over it's silky petals.

" Nothing like this." The wind catches my hair and the salt scent mixes with the perfume of the trees around me. From behind me Sirius threads his fingers in my hair and I pull against him as he runs his hands through, a small shiver going down my spine at the pressure on my scalp. I can see the ocean from the edge of the jungle. Life here must be wonderful. 

Beside me Sirius sighs.

Before I can turn to him Thalia, who has been trudging several feet before me comes over, pulling on her mother's skirt, which is already hanging off her hips and looks ready to fall off. The cloth stays firmly where it should as the little girl points to me.

"Madae, he has fire hair! Look!" Self consciously I brush it back behind my ear as the woman, Massiah…I think he called her, swings the child up into her arms.

" Yes Darling, he has red hair." Her voice is amused as the girl squirms in her arms, reaching her small chubby hands towards me. 

"Can I touch it?" Before I can step closer she steps back with a small twist and puts her child on the other side of her body away from me. 

" You can ask him when we get home." She says in a placating voice that means absolutely not. I'm nut sure whether or not to be offended when a flock of large snow white cranes take off from inside the jungles a few miles to our right. I follow their flight with my eyes, looking back down in time to see her go pale. " It's them." Without a thought Sirius scoops up the oldest boy, settling him on his hip.

" Percy, get the other one. Death Eaters are coming." And he's off running. The little boy, Lysander, is an awkward bundle in my arms as I run through the high grasses after them, finally managing to shift him across my back despite the death grip he's locked himself into across my neck.

The woman leads us over what is obviously a small cart road, her bare feet churning up dust as she runs with long strides. There's a bend in the road leading behind a large boulder and from there is a steep hill, maybe eighty feet up with a winding cart hill. I'm not sure if I can carry a child up there at a run and not pass out from the height. Instead the woman veers to the left running down towards the beach and stopping by what is a very narrow footpath of rocks leading up the face of the rocky ledge. I'm panting slightly as I let the boy slide down and scramble over to the rocks, running up them like they were a flat path in the park. My stomach falls to my feet as I watch the woman follow them. Oh no. No, no, no.

" Is now a bad time to mention I never played Quidditch because I can't stand heights?" My voice is a hiss because other wise it would be a squeak of terror. Sirius pushes me in front of him onto the path.

" A very bad time as we have _no_ time!" I'm not sure why we're running so fast, the death eaters would barely be out of the woods…unless they flew. Bloody hell. I grasp a rock and follow the woman ahead of me, forcing my feet to go at a dangerously fast pace on the narrow ledges, clinging to the wall with one hand until we come to a larger ledge and the children fit their little hands into cracks and start climbing _straight up_ the remaining fifteen feet. We watch as they scramble up the ledge and take off running, screeching in the same language their mother cursed in, voices getting softer as they run further away from us. Tying her skirt up so that it wraps around one long leg, leaving the other bare, Massiah reaches up and begins climbing the face as well, making short work of the wall in just three minutes. 

Sirius nudges me towards it and my hands shake as I reach for the closest rock, trying not to burst into tears as I look up and definitely not down towards the rocks I'm going to fall on when I slip.

" Shh." Sirius presses himself against me, taking my hand and stretching us both upwards until my hand slips into a crack. " This one." I tremble as he whispers more instructions into my ear and I lift my leg as high as I can, finding a gap for my foot.

Calling on every God I know, Nana knew, and some I think I may have just made up, I pull my feet off the ground and begin the longest seven minutes of my life. When I pull myself onto the grass, I collapse there and shake…until Sirius, the bastard, rolls almost onto me less than two minutes later. Massiah, who waited anxiously, eyes trained on the children who are close to the towering gates of a town, is already running. My knees almost send me onto my face as I stand and try to follow her. Sirius pauses in his sprint before I Drop down into a runners crouch and take off to fast for my nervousness to sprawl me flat. I've almost caught up to them, shoes clacking as I join them on a road of large cobblestones. 

Just inside the large wooden gate the cobblestones change becoming smaller and my foot catches on one as the gates close with a slam. My balance is shot, my nerves are raw…and I spill forward, rolling over the hard street in a tumble and scrape my knee before I roll onto my back, shaking and gasping for breath. 

I didn't die yet. Life is fairly good.

Sirius is kneeling beside me, eyes concerned as he touches me gently, helping me upright.

" Sirius Black," I make sure he's looking at me. " I hate you. I hate your cliffs, and your shortcuts and the way your road goes from big cobblestones to bloody fucking little ones!" I'm shaking so hard as I come down off the mix of fear and adrenaline that my teeth chatter. He's trying not to laugh as his fingers probe over my body feeling for anything I may have pulled, strained or broken in my run and fall. His hands still against the sticky warm blood on my trousers and he starts to pull at them. I stop his hand. " Skinned knee." For a moment I lean against him, letting the warm sun touch my face and feeling him breath beneath me, when he stiffens, breath caught in his throat.

Standing before us is a woman, barely sixty and very beautiful. Her hair is thick and black, falling in an intricate braid down her back and streaked with silvery white at the temples. Her mouth is open in a small o of wonder and the slight wrinkles at her eyes and the corners of her mouth deepen as she smiles down at us. 

Or more accurately him.

" Sirius." Again with that singing pronunciation. I move from his arms as he lunges forward, wrapping his arms around her tightly as he buries his face in the deep violet of her dress. His shoulder shake as she strokes his hair, whispering to him in one breath and giving order in the next, motioning towards the gates, back through town and then to me. I tense for a moment until she gives me a brief small motherly smile.

" Madae…" Sirius is whispering out broken sentences of the native language and I turn my eyes towards the other towns people, attempting a pretense of privacy for the reunion between Sirius and the woman who could only be his mother. She steps back from him finally, hands wrapping around his arms to pull him to his feet, speaking for the first time in clear and beautiful English.

" Bring your friend and come home Sirius. We have so much to say before you go again." I scramble to my feet, easily looking the woman in the eye with just a slight downward tilt of my head. She must be six feet tall. She gives another smile, this time showing a mouth full of white teeth before turning and walking with grace through the streets. 

Sirius is thrumming with excitement beside me as we wind through narrow streets, getting further away from the narrow two story houses and finally coming to a large villa at the end of the road. It's iron gates twist into elegant spirals covered with thick glossy grape leaves. The grapes that dangle just above our heads are large and purple/black. Sirius reaches up and grabs a handful, eating them with a grin. I grab a few myself, giving a small moan as I swallow the thick sweet juices. I don't think I've ever had anything quite so good. Sirius grins at me as we draw closer to the large sprawling house, covered over in vines and flowers. At the door a small fish pond is filled with what appear to be beta as large as a carp, their bright colors flickering between flashes of green/white water lilies. 

Inside the walls are the rich golden wood and Sirius' mother ushers us down a hallway to a large bedroom overlooking the ocean. In the center is a king sized bed of a silvery wood that I've never seen before, spread over with thick soft looking blankets that soak up the suns heat.

" You both need to rest." Her friendly voice is vaguely tired sounding as she backs towards the door. " Your cousin has taken her bad children home…" She continues as I sink onto the bed gratefully and it's just as soft as it looks. Cousin. In retrospect I can see it. She didn't have the same height as Sirius, or his mother, but the fine bones in her face with the ever so slanted cat like eyes and full mouth are much like his. I turn my head as his mother rushes back in, whispering a final declaration of love before leaving in a sweetly scented breeze of competence. I like Sirius's mother very much. I think she would have gotten along wonderfully with my own mum. I stare out over the waters, looking at the large shadow lurking far under the surface out there. He crawls up behind me, arm warm around my waist as he stares with me and for a moment his breath on my neck seems to suggest sex he sits up further.

" What is the actual plan anyways? I know you Percy. You've got more planned than run in, blow it up, grab the boys, run away, run back and blow it up some more." I tense up slightly. It was too easy to think that I could get away with fooling him long enough to get him, Harry, and Ron away from the island and taking care of the rest myself.

" You're right." My voice is distant, even to myself as I pull the leather satchel up onto the bed, aware for the first time that I very well may have broken some of the precious ingredients inside. My voice is a mutter as I ansewer him, pulling vials and potions out of the magically enhanced bag. " Dresdenaire takes quite a bit of stuff." My voice catches on the name and suddenly sitting here is too much to ask of me. I swing off the bed, pulling a portable cauldron from the bag's seemingly bottomless depths. Setting it up and arranging the potions and powders around the desk closest to the window.

" Dresdenaire…Percy I've never heard of any spell called.." I can't let him finish. I turn, cutting him off.

" Of course you haven't. Technically Dresdenaire doesn't exist." I close my eyes for a moment, savoring the silence while he tries to speak, letting my mind wander.

::_ His hair's slipped out of the clasp in the back and the pieces in his face are matted down my the heat pouring off the cauldron. His eyes shine with excitement as he stares down at the thick opal fire liquid._

" Percy." I look at him and his eyes are glowing in the half light. " I think we did it!"::

" The bomb curse." His voice is a horse whisper. " You know the bomb curse." The accusations in his voice are dulled only by the ringing notes of betrayal. Good. Maybe if this hurts him enough he'll stay here in the safety of this wonderful town. He'll be here for Harry to come back to.

" Actually it's a mixed spell. Part potion, part curse and considering that I helped invent it, yeah, I know it." My stomach heaves as I force the words off my tongue. For a moment I think Sirius may actually break down into tears, his eyes are that bright and unfocused.

" You…" The innocently wounded look he gives me rips my heart out by the roots. I spin away from my work, tempted to laugh through the grimace of pain on my face.

" Yes Sirius. I did it. I helped blow up Hogwarts, I helped us start losing the war, I helped kill my lover and I didn't do it alone." For a moment I wanted to go on. To tell him everything. My heart skipped a beat as his eyes focused on mine and I could see the pieces falling into place in his head. I turn away, hands shaking as I add more vials into the cauldron, trying to keep every word straight in my mind as I work.

" Remus." His voice is hollow as I grab up the powdered ash winder eggs. " You and Remus and Cam…worked together on this, didn't you?" I almost spill the powder as my hand shakes. Thank god I measured this all out beforehand otherwise I might have blown this beautiful house apart by now. He knocks the empty glass out of my hand, not heading it's crash to the floor as he knocks me to the wall, snarling down at me as I gulp for the air he knocked out of my lungs. 

The salt of a tear slips past my lips. I didn't realize I had started crying. His eyes are cold and almost dangerous as he lowers his face to mine, his hands pushing my wrists almost painfully against the wood.

" Didn't you!?"

" Not all of it." I can see Cam standing there, wolfs bane potion in hand for the professor as they talked. "We'd just started working with Professor Lupin on the theory of a trigger word for the spell."

" But why!?" He rages. I shove away from the wall and catch him in the solar plexus with my shoulder, sending him sprawling on the thick carpeting.

" Don't be so fucking sodding stupid! Why do you think?! We were working with the ministry! Every _fucking_ one of us. We were doing all of it's most dangerous work inside what should have been the safest place in England and the curse was the most challenging and dangerous thing they were working on." I glare down at him and for a moment I almost hate him for not knowing, for making me tell him and then all I feel is regret as I step over his legs back towards the cauldron. It's funny that this has to be cold concocted. Ironic really.

" But how the fuck did you plan on using it?" I shrug, stirring. It's funny how we'd never thought of that. Idealism.

" Never even thought of it until after Hogwarts when I realized they were planning on doing the same thing the Death Eaters did to us. Capturing spies, getting information out of them and then sending them back to kill entire camps, prisoners and all…but don't worry." My hands are finally steady as I draw all my resolve, weaving my wand through the smoke and incorporating the final step, the one we never tested, the trigger, into the spell. " Dresdenaire dies on this island."


	11. Tokana

CHAPTER 11

She tied you to a kitchen chair…  


Inside the flask it looked utterly harmless, more like hair conditioner than a instrument of mass destruction. The thick swirls of white and red chased each other through the swirling silvery liquid and really it's almost beautiful.

I'm two seconds from throwing it from the window and into the sea. 

Percy trembles as he approaches the bed, sinking down onto it and wrapping his arms tightly around himself, back to me as he stares out into the ocean, or maybe just at the flask full of death. I take a step towards him and a shard of glass from the broken vial sinks into my bare foot. I pull it out and the blood wells up thick and dark to run down the sole of my foot and land on the carpet. 

I leave a trail of tiny spots of red as I pad down the hall to the bath, rinsing my foot in the sink and binding it tightly. Through the open window I can hear the shrieks of children running along the bluff, playing tag and eating grapes until they get sick. There's a knock at the door before Madae comes in, resting her hand on my shoulder.

" Siri, what's wrong sweet one?" My mother hasn't called me that since I was seventeen. She pulls me over to the low cushioned bench and sits me down, pulling a brush from the nearby shelf. 

" I miss my mate Madae." It wasn't what I planned to say, or even what I thought I was feeling, but from the moment it leaves my mouth I know it's truer than anything else I feel right now. Even stronger then the clawing sense of betrayal in the back of my mind.

Her hands are firm as she begins pulling the brush through my hair. I hadn't realized how long it's grown until I feel the bristles of the brush scraping the middle of my back. She's silent, letting the words tumble out of my mouth as she separates my hair into seven strands braiding them all together.

" The boy…it's not his fault Madae, but something he helped in killed many people. Killed his lover and I almost lost Remus and do you remember James and Lily, Madae?" Her reflection nods in the mirror. " Their son Harry is missing and we know he's here but before we found out they killed my mate Madae…Re is gone."

I haven't said that out loud. In all this time that I've known, that I've said it to myself silently I never heard my own voice wrap around those words with such finality. 

There's no going back now. Oh god, Remus is gone. When she wraps her arms around me I lean back against her, letting the tears run down my temples as she rocks us from side to side. The children outside, screeching with joy almost drown out the miserable sound of my sobbing.

" Shh." Her voice is low as she comforts me with legends of our culture before the destruction. When I can draw a steady breath she lets me go, sitting gracefully beside me. " Sirius, sweet one, listen to me." Her fingers are cool and scented as she cups my face. " I don't think I will ever know what happened. I want to know, but my soul says there will never be time, so here is a half advice. The boy…he's just that. A boy. And to look at him, a great innocent. This war you're in has touched you both in ways you will never recover from. Don't hold him accountable for your pain." She stands, pulling me to my feet. " The entire family will be here after dark. Go, forgive the boy and rest until then." With a kiss my mother is gone again and I turn back towards the bedroom.

Percy's still curled around himself on the bed, shoulders heaving as he muffles sobs into the pillow. He turns his head away from me as I slip onto the bed, curling around his shaking form. His glasses are sprawled on the bedside table and his hair, mussed and windswept from the day's excitement is now a tangled halo around his face.

" I'm sorry." Another silent sob shakes him in my arms as I whisper the words into his ear. " I'm sorry for every accusation I said, all the ones I didn't and for everyone you make against yourself. I'm just so scared." He rolls, eyes wide and shimmering as he looks at me in disbelief.

" You're scared?" His hair untangles beneath my fingers and it's hard not to laugh at him. 

" Completely terrified. That's not even an accurate beginning for how scared I am, but it will have to do." He chuckles a little, eyes cast downward as his arms loosen around himself, one hand toying with the buttons on my shirt.

" I wasn't really scared before. Not until you forced me up that cliff and then I realized that I _could_ still be scared and then I was to tired and angry and then I realized I'd finished the brewing and that this was it. There was nothing left between myself and going but Harry and Ron." He buries his head underneath my chin, letting my hands wander across his back and up his arms and through his hair, easing the last of the nervous tremors from him. Exhaustion rolls off him in waves as I pull him closer to me, sitting up and rocking with him. 

" A'takira adini espe tiru nada. Toke nadu ry'enta adia espa nada." It's the same lullaby I crooned to myself rocking in the darkness of Azakaban. Percy looks up from my shoulder, eyes half closed. 

" You sing wonderfully. Whatever are you singing?" 

" Katara Toke. Song of the island. It goes…sleep among the ruined city, island ruins filled with flowers…" I'm not sure how much of the song I translate for him before he slips into unconsciousness. Easing him down into the bed it feels completely natural to undress his feet and ease him out of his over shirt. His hair is soft as I brush it off his forehead and with the same clenching suddenness I realize, I've started to love him and could well fall very much in love with him if we had time.

But time doesn't seem to be on our list of possibilities. 

He cuddles under the duvet as I pull it over his shoulders. 

I run into Massi as I step out the back door into the sunlight. In her arms is a folded cloth of dark blue shot through with gold thread and what looks suspiciously like a braid wrap. 

" Oh no. Absolutely _not_ Massiah Adini. There is _no_ way I'm going native tonight." She gives me a huge grin, her eyes sparkling with smug mirth.

" You have to Sirius. The only one who doesn't is Percy. So I made sure I got everything together for you. Got your saro, your wrap, your bollera, your…" She looks up from pawing through the small pile and holds up a pair of thick gold earrings in the shape of thick squares, an old family heirloom. There's no escaping. "I don't have to reopen your ears do I?"

" No." I sigh, feeling their weight in my hands. It's been decades since I wore anything this heavy from my ears. Hopefully they don't feel as heavy as I think. She never notices as she pulls out a small jar of powder.

" Can you still put on Kolla without making yourself look like a woman?" I snatch the tiny jar from her and scowl.

" Yes, Massi. I can still dress up in skirts and makeup and somehow not look like a woman." Her laugh is high and sweet as she leans up to kiss my cheek.

" You don't intend on staying with us no matter what happens, at least give your Madae the pleasure of seeing her son dressed as a man of the island." She takes my hand, pulling me back inside towards the bath and shoving me in and chattering on and on. "…And make sure you use the sweet herb soap and oils and make sure you pin that braid up so I don't have to redo Antae Castopa's work." By the time she's gone I find myself with an arm full of towels, oils, soaps, pins and a copper tub filled with steaming scented water.

Some things never change. Massi could always talk the kraken out of the ocean if she had a mind to. Setting the piles on the bench, I smile to see a small plate of fruit and a goblet of honey wine beside the tub. 

The water is just hot enough as I sink into it, picking up the goblet and letting the thick sweet wine roll over my tongue for a moment before swallowing. For a moment it's easy to forget I've ever left home.

And then the sun catches on the pale scars around my wrists. I set the wine down and in the bright light of the day begin to actually look at myself. The thick welts around my wrists where I spent years fighting restraints, the long lines of nails drug across my chest in one of a dozen fights under the cells of Azakaban, the list goes on as I run my fingers over them all one by one.

There is absolutely no way I'm appearing before my family with every shame and disgrace I own marked into my body. I'm rising from the tub when Massi comes in, humming to herself, arms full again.

" Siri, your Madae said…" Her voice trails off as I turn my back to her, my pinned braid baring the two scars from the whomping willow and almost half a dozen from the beating Lucius Malfoy gave me during…however long he held Remus and I in that lightless room in Devon.

" I don't think I'm going to go in my formals Massiah. I'm sorry but…" My breath stills as her finger comes to rest on the tail end of the longest scar, tracing it up my back to where it stops below my shoulder blade. 

" Oh Sirius…" Her voice is soft and sad, but nowhere inside lurks the disappointment I feared. " What did they do to you out there?" She hands me my towel, helping me out of the tub and quickly moving the plate to a low shelf and sitting me on the bench.

" I can't do it. I can't appear before Madae and the entire Tokana like this. Not my family, not the elders, not in this body…" She startles me, sliding her hand over my mouth to still my words, pulling my chin up to face her.

" If not that body than who's? There is no one we want to see more and regardless of how a lifetime of Paccea may have hurt you, we know your soul here and under the scars, you're still Sirius Dilandi Black of the house of the temples of A'lat." Her hand is almost dwarfed by mine as she lifts it, kissing my palm. " If anything the scars are honor and a gift to us. They show us that you were strong enough to come home to us." My chest is tight and for a moment I think I may cry again, just bury my head in my cousins neck and sob but instead I laugh, because she's right and I'm stupid.

As long as I live, I'll have every mark inflicted on me and I'm not foolish enough to ever think I will do anything but feel burning anger or shame for most of them, but to my family, they are just skin, not me at all. Smiling at me she stands, moving behind me to remove the pins holding the heavy coiled hair off my head. With nimble fingers she winds the thick woven feather wrap around and through the seven strand braid, letting the one complete and perfect feather dangle from the end of the braid into the last few inches of free hair. 

" There. Turn around." Instead she comes around in front of me before I can move, studying my face critically before cracking a sly smile. " And you're _sure_ you can still put on the Kolla by yourself?"

" My? It's time to leave now." She laughs again and backs towards the door, stopping only to pick up the thick glass bottle of sweet oil.

" Don't forget." She tosses it to me so that it lands neatly in the cradle of my hands. " You might want to have Percy do it for you. You'll never reach your back otherwise."

She has the audacity to wink at me and cluck her tongue before leaving.

Five minutes of trying to apply oil to my back without dropping or knocking over the bottle later, I gather everything up and admit defeat. The hall is thankfully empty of cousins, mothers and children as I make my semi-naked way back to the room.

Percy is sitting up in the fading sunlight, stretching and yawning. He gives me a sleepy half smile, eyes traveling up and down my body, stopping on the bundle in my arms and the bottle of oil. His eyebrow lifts faintly.

" Not that you don't look fetching in oil and very little else, but shouldn't you have made any advances _before_ we had to get ready for dinner?" I grin at him, dumping the pile on the bed beside him.

" I _am_ getting ready for dinner. I have to go in formal wear and around here that's not much, but they're very picky about what is involved. This is sweet herb oil." I shake the bottle at him. " When being honored by the Madae Tokana you have to make sure you're all oiled down, good and all except that I can't…" I gesture towards my back. "So…little help?" He cradles the bottle gently, pulling the cork and inhaling deeply.

" This smells wonderful." Carefully he pours some into his palms, breathing on it. He catches my look and smiles. " Warms it up. Here. Turn around." He's kneeling behind me and then his hands are warm as they begin massaging the oil into my skin, lightly tracing the shoulder blades and digging his thumbs into the small of my back hard enough to make me moan. For a few moments it's just us and the breeze and the setting sun. 

" Um…there." I barely open my eyes as he slides out from behind me, looking at the small pile on the bed. " And is that…what you're wearing?"

"Yes." I stand, shaking out the saro and folding the longer corner so that a length of the cloth was now golden shot through with deep blue. I let the towel fall to the floor and whip the saro low around my hips fingers securing it firmly underneath. The thick wrapped gold chain of the bollera is heavy around my neck, the ends dangling above my navel as I secure it with another inscribed golden square, but it's a comforting weight, the same as the earrings. Percy is silent as I move past him, opening the Kolla and dipping the little brush My tucked into my saro into the powder, tracing my eyes and smudging it thickly at the inner corners.

"Ha ha. Twenty years and I can _still_ put on Kolla." I turn with a smug grin and Percy is just staring at me. " Percy?"

" How," His voice is husky. " Do you expect me to make it through dinner when you're dressed like that?" He moves towards me, arms resting on either side of me as he nuzzles the side of my neck. " Oh you smell good."

" Yes, but unfortunately for you this oil doesn't taste particularly good, so I'm afraid you're just going to have to content yourself with changing." He gives me a pout.

" Into what? I brought the rattiest clothes I had and I'm _wearing_ those right now…" He stops as Massi pokes her head into the door. Sometimes I swear she spends her life hovering around and taking care of everyone's affairs. As if reading my thoughts she meets my eyes and winks, going over to Percy.

" These…" She shakes out a pair of loose white pants and an over shirt of the same heavy silk as a saro. " Are for you to wear to the dinner." In her hands is a small basket and I can see trailing threads sticking out of the edge. " I need you to slip into the pants so that I can adjust them though…" She's already kneeling beside the bed, pulling out a strip of hide with needles and pins jabbed through it and a hand wound reel of thin white thread. Her thick hair is pulled back from her face, the locks that generally frame her face twisted tightly with strands of the small pearls the boys gather from the ocean tunnel and wound around the back of her head. " What are you waiting for? I still have to get ready myself. I don't have all day." I snicker as Percy gives her an apologetic look before stepping out of his trousers and quickly into the overly large white ones. My works quickly, hemming and reworking the waist until they cling snugly to his hips. With a mischievous grin she tugs sharply on them, making Percy yelp and proving that her seems will hold.

" My, don't tease." She grins up at Percy and myself before rising in a fluid motion and handing him the shirt.

" Finish dressing him Sirius and make sure you aren't late. You have less than half an hour." When I turn around, Percy is busy tucking his undershirt neatly into his pants.

" What are you doing?" He looks up at me.

" Making myself presentable?" He asks before sighing. " No shirt?" I shake my head.

" Only this one I'm afraid." I pick up the sweet oil, pouring some into my hands. " Well…this too." He practically purrs as my hands rub the oil into his skin, leaving only a light sheen and sweet scent. I let my hands linger on the curve of an exposed hip, leaning in to breath his scent. " Mm. You're right. I don't think we can make it through the whole dinner ceremony." His lips catch my mouth, running his tongue just inside my bottom lip.

" Nope. But we'll try awfully hard." He steps back lightly on bare feet and shrugs into the heavy silk shirt, arranging the folds, shockingly, in the correct manner. " How do I look?" 

" You look wonderful." I turn to see my Madae in the doorway in her deep purple sarae, hair pulled back from her face and then falling free to her waist. Her smile widens as she steps inside the room. " You both do." Her fingers rest lightly on the bollera around my neck before she steps back " Come, they wait."

The entire Madae Tokana is waiting in our family grove, the women elegant and strong in their age and beauty. My mother gently leads Percy to sit with Massi and her family before joining the other women, now eleven in all, standing before the large bonfire. On either side my entire family is interspersed with half the town, members I didn't know still lived and children I had never seen be born as I walk down through their ranks, kneeling in the circle of olive, cinnamon, and Saro branches. The eldest woman there comes forward, her white hair sweeping her calves and one seeing eye fixed firmly upon me. Her voice is kind but very firm as she begins speaking, asking me who I am, why I came, why I brought Percy, what we came for and what we seek. The words roll of my tongue in formal Atlantian as I ansewer her every question, eyes locked with hers in respect. For a moment everything is silent before she claps once followed by the pairs of women surrounding her until they have each given me their approval. With a nod from the women I stand and step out of the circle and the meal can begin. 

The food…I've had nothing like it since I left home and yet, I can't focus on it. Only on the laughing boy sitting next to me, engaged in a lively conversation with A man I can only assume to be my cousin's husband about the history of A'lat. Thalia has crawled into his lap and is eating his roast bird and all of his fruit with one hand, the other tangled contentedly in his hair as she sings a little to herself. On either side of me people chatter excitedly, touching my shoulder and back, dropping welcoming kisses on me. Massi laughs as Percy reaches for a piece of his food and comes up with an empty hand and a giggling child, handing him another plate and scooping up the four year old in her arms.

In this moment I know I belong here forever and I'm glad that if I have to die, I die here. 

From the shadows a boy, maybe thirteen steps out, a conga held between his knees and strapped securely around his neck. He smiles nervously, his first drumming. Around us other boys are scrambling for their instruments including Epifiano, who must be at least twelve then. Taking a deep breath he lifts his hands and starts pounding out a rapid rhythm, joined by children with bells, tombas, castanets, and big metal drums. Even Massi's father gets up, joining the boys with his old guitar. 

With a rush six or seven woman get up, including My and begin to dance, limbs glowing in the firelight as they kick, whirl and gyrate in an ever widening circle as more and more people join.

" Siri!" Massi appears at my side, face lightly flushed as she smiles. " This is for you! Come dance!" I shoot a beseeching look at Percy who only settles back further on his woven mat, gesturing towards the circles that whirl and kick.

" Go dance!" And then three more women are pulling me to my feet and into the largest circle and pulling me along into the dance. I link my arms with my uncle and his brother, following them through two steps sideways and back the other way three more steps, kicking and turning to face the inner ring of women. As we rotate, I watch Percy lounging in the shadows, the edges of the firelight catching his hair and making his eyes glow as he watches.

And then we rotate again and he's gone.

The dance seems to drag out as I search the crowds for him and then the circle breaks and the music is hard and raw and Massi is grinning from behind Percy's shoulder as she shoves him out amongst the dancers, a deep green saro clinging to his hips and thick bands of gold on his upper arms and around his neck.

I love my cousin. 

His hair falls in his eyes as he slips into my arms, his back fitting snugly against my chest as I pull him tighter against me. His body sways with mine as I move him with the music and against me, hand sliding against the slick skin.

" You have _no_ possible idea how much I want you right now." He shivers in my grip and lifts his feet clear of the ground, letting me spin us around. " Kick your right foot as high as you can." His stomach quivers under my fingers as I scrape my nails across it. " I want you right now, in front if the fire with the music still playing. I want to make you scream in time with the drums." I spin him and arch him over backwards so that his hair brushes the grass, fitting my thigh snugly between his legs as I lower him repeatedly until he's kneeling in the grass, legs open and head back as I spin around him, kicking over his head and pulling him back to his feet, breathless.

" How long does this last?" His breath is a gasp as I sink my teeth lightly into his neck.

" Until dawn." His moan is like fire in my veins. " But I don't think it'd be amiss to skive off for a while as long as we return." With a growl he grabs my hand from his waist, pulling me out of the dance and off into the trees.

__

:: His face is lit from below in the cold silver glow and warm golden firelight from the candles strips the harshness of the lights…

" Percy?" He's not sure whether to laugh or not. " Of all the times to be daydreaming, now is not it." He grins from beneath his bandana, eyebrow ring glinting in the light. " Cause I think we may have just done it!" He dips the ladle into the cauldron, pouring a flask full of the thick opal creamy liquid. " But um…how do we test it?" Carefully he stoppers it, setting it on the shelf behind us in the lab. His lab goggles dangle around his neck.

" We'll owl the minister and that's up to him. We've done our job." I shove the goggles up onto my forehead and come around the steaming cauldron, wrapping an arm around his slim waist. " So, how do you want to celebrate?" He bats my hand away from the buttons on his robe.

" Not in here, that's for sure. I'm sick of these walls. Come on. We can take a long bath and go down to the three broomsticks...have some dinner, some wine…" I sigh, pulling back.

" As wonderful as it sounds Cam, I'd rather stay in for the night." He frowns at me. " Don't let that stop you though. You go on into town, have a few drinks, bring the wine back here…" I kiss the corner of his mouth. " And then we'll celebrate together."::

There's no celebrating now though. No joy at the small flask on the desk, drawing my eyes like a magnet. Instead there's simply the overwhelming sense of impeding doom. I shiver as I curl tighter around myself on the large soft bed. Sirius left the room and the silence in the warm air is unnerving.

He's disgusted with me. My one ally in my last endeavor hates me now. Even muffling my sobs in the soft pillows until it's hard to breath doesn't make the sounds any softer in my ears. I bite my lip, trying to quell the sickening waves of bone crushing fear.

God, don't let him change his mind, don't make me do this alone.

He slips onto the bed behind me, fitting his body against mine as he wraps his arms around me. I turn my head away from him. I don't want to see him abandon me.

" I'm sorry." His words slip into my ear and shudder through me. He's not staying. " I'm sorry for every accusation I said, all the ones I didn't and for everyone you make against yourself. I'm just so scared." 

Logically I should have known that he was scared too. Who wouldn't be, but to hear him whisper it in my ear is just as relieving as the half heard apologies. I twist in his arms, staring up at him.

" You're scared?" He gives me a rueful smile and his face looks different for a moment before I realize why. The flowing hair that generally falls over his shoulder is pulled back into a tight braid at the nape of his neck. 

" Completely terrified." he catches the corner of his bottom lip in his teeth. " That's not even an accurate beginning for how scared I am, but it will have to do." It feels good for the sudden rush of air from my chest to be a laugh and not another sob. I'm sick of tears. I ease my nails out of my arm, fingering a button on his shirt.

" I wasn't really scared before. Not until you forced me up that cliff and then I realized that I _could_ still be scared and then I was to tired and angry and then I realized I'd finished the brewing and that this was it. There was nothing left between myself and going but Harry and Ron." I'm babbling and when I stop it's so sudden I almost bite my tongue as I stop the out pouring of words, burying my head under his chin as he runs his hands over my back and arms and through my hair.

Fuck. Cam this isn't funny. You and Remus are _not_ funny.

I don't _want_ to love him.

He sits up, pulling me with him so that I'm cradled under his arm, tucked against a solid wall of warmth. He begins rocking side to side with me, singing softly under his breath. I close my eyes, letting the syllables slide over me. A-ta-Key-re-uh Ad-de-ne Es-pe Te-ru na-da… I look up at him through heavy eyes.

" You sing wonderfully. Whatever are you singing?" He leans back further against the headboard, voice rumbling in his chest as he begins to translate the song. I close my eyes and worm closer to him.

::_ The white sands are warm and soft under my body as I let the breeze tickle over my bare back. A familiar weight settles across my hips, long fingers braiding random sections of my hair._

" I'm really feeling it here. You should stay."

" Cam, you're being absolutely ridiculous. I can't stay. I have to save Ron and Harry." The wind carries the scent of burning from beyond the beach and even from behind me. His legs are starting to burn where they're clamped around my waist.

" Now who's being ridiculous? You don't have to take the potion you know. You know there are plenty of other things you can do with it. Knock out a death eater and pour it down his throat, feed it to a fucking owl and tie a note to it's leg saying "boom" and address it to Voldemort…you're creative Percy, you're just looking for an easy way out." The heat of his skin is almost unbearable as he slides off my back, walking into the waves. The water boils around him, but the look of anguish is eased off his face as he walks further out. Around him dark haired figures swim, circling him and tugging his hands down towards the sunken cities. 

" Cam!" He stops in the water. " You want me with you, don't you?" He smiles at me.

" To be so smart you can be awfully simple Percy. You're always with me." 

He dives and disappears beneath the waves::

For the first time in a year I've dreamt of Cam without seeing the destruction all over again. I sit up in the empty bed and stretch my arms over my head, yawning. The sun is setting over the ocean, setting the water ablaze with gold and orange. From the corner of my eye I see Sirius hovering in the doorway. I turn towards him and smile.

He's fresh from the bath, his skin slightly damp and I can smell the scent of oil from here. I let my eyes flow up and down his body, from his broad shoulders to his long legs and back to the bundle in his arms, a bottle of oil perched on top of it all. My eyebrow quirks.

" Not that you don't look fetching in oil and very little else, but shouldn't you have made any advances _before_ we had to get ready for dinner?" A grin crosses his face as he leans over, dumping a very small pile onto the bed. The braid in his hair is now woven through with a feathered wrap that coils tightly around sections and then weaves in and out of sections before tying off above a few inches of loose flowing hair.

" I _am_ getting ready…" The arch of his back draws my eyes as he leans over the bed, plucking an ornate bottle of thick hand blown sea green glass from it's resting place on a folded length of deep blue cloth shot through with threads of gold. I look up in surprise as he shakes the bottle at me. " little help?" The glass is warm in my hands as I take it, easing the thick cork out of the narrow neck and taking a deep breath of the thick sweet scent. Something like water lilies, basil, clover and half a dozen things I can't name. It sits thick and fragrant in the palm of my hand as I lean forward and exhale on it, warming it in my hands. Sirius gives me an odd look.

" Warms it up." He nods slightly. " Here, turn around." I kneel on the edge of the bed, rubbing my slick hands together before putting them on his back and sliding them up to his shoulders, kneading the warm flesh under my hands methodically. He gives a groan as I dig my thumbs in at the base of his spine. 

There are moments where time stands still and you can spend an eternity or a moment doing one thing and never tell the difference. This is one of those times. Only when I want to slide my slick hands up his thighs and throw his towel out the window do I stop, sliding off the bed and standing in front of him on barely supportive knees. He looks at me through hardly opened eyes. 

" Um, there." The sun is gone, the dim twilight seeping through the window. Around us lamps are lighting themselves and he gleams in their light. I shift my eyes to the pile on the bed. " And is that…what you're wearing?" He moves, pulling the heavy cloth from the bed and shaking it out so that it's glimmering golden inside flashes for a moment. Leaning over the bed again he takes a protruding corner, folding it so that a long streak of gold shows against the blue. Offhandedly he drops the towel to the floor and for a moment again I'm tempted to trace my hands up the lean legs and then he's wrapping the cloth around his hips with a few deft movements so that it clings to his body, barely riding his hips. 

Gold glitters up from the bed as he pulls a long cord of the metal up and slips it around his neck, threading it through a thick square of gold until the ends rest evenly above his navel. Carefully he slips of a pair of matching squares into his earlobes and they look dreadfully heavy but if they are he ignores them, going to stand in front of the mirrored dresser, dipping a small brush into a tiny jar and quickly sweeping a line of dark powder above and below his eyes, taking his finger and thickening the line in the corner of his eyes. He gives his reflection a grin and laughs.

" Ha ha, twenty years and I can _still_ put on Kolla." He turns to me and desire hits me in the pit of my stomach, flaring up like fire.

" Percy?"

" How do you expect me to make it though dinner with you dressed like that?" His smug half smile melts into a gasp as I take three steps forward, pinning him between the dresser and my body, burying my face in the soft skin between his neck and shoulder, taking a deep breath. " Oh, you smell good."

" Yes…" His voice is thick as he tilts his head away from me, giving me access to his neck " But unfortunately for you this oil doesn't taste particularly good so I'm afraid you're going to have to content yourself with changing."

Shit. Change?

" Into what? I brought the rattiest clothes I had and I'm _wearing_ those right now…" As if cued, Massiah pokes her head into the door, looking Sirius over and then grinning at me, arching her eyebrows. Without pause she strolls in, her hair pulled back from her face with strings of small white pearls. Piled in her arms is a mound of white cloth. She stops in front of me. 

" These," She shakes out a pair of light weight white pants that are obviously far to big and a shirt of the same heavy , silky looking material of Sirius'…skirt. I crack a small smile. " Are for you to wear to dinner. I need you to slip into the pants so I can adjust them though." She's kneeling by the edge of the bed, pulling a small sewing basket out of the jumble and fishing out a strip of needles and pins.

Yes, I was just trying to seduce your cousin and you think it's a good idea for me to get undressed _right now_? She looks up at me and glares, reminding me even more of Ginny.

" What are you waiting for? I still have to get ready myself. I don't have all day." She hands me the pants, turning to reach into her basket as I step out of my jeans and into the small white tent. Her hands are warm as she pulls them down to my hips, pinning them while Sirius perches on the dresser, watching with a satisfied look as Massiah's small scissors and long fingers make short work of the waist, reworking it so that the pants fit. Finally she looks up at me and grabs the legs of the pants, tugging them downwards. The seams hold and so does my grip. Sirius smirks, standing.

" My, don't tease." She wrinkles her nose as she smiles at me, standing up and handing me the heavy shirt.

" Finish dressing him Sirius and make sure you aren't late. You have less than half an hour." Sirius follows her halfway to the door while I start tucking my undershirt into the pants. He turns around.

" What are you doing?" I look up at him, one hand still against my hip.

" Making myself presentable?" damn, I'm already doing this all wrong. " No shirt?" He shakes his head.

" Only this one I'm afraid." He picks up the bottle of oil and smiles slowly, pouring some out into his hands. " Well…this too." The shirt slips out of my hands as he slides his palms up my chest in a mimicry of the way I rubbed his back. His hands slip up around my back and back down my sides, resting on my hips above the pants. " Mm, you're right. I don't think we can make it through the entire dinner ceremony." 

I've never kissed Sirius Black for the sake of kissing him. It was always grief or anger or confusion, power and struggle and taking. This is just a soft exhaling of breath as I let my lips graze his, letting my tongue slide along the soft wet line of the inner edge of his lower lip.

" Nope…but we'll try awfully hard." Starting by stepping away from him and breathing my own air. I slip my arms into the shirt, arranging the thick folds in the front so they lay straight down the front as I search for buttons. No buttons. Over Sirius's shoulder I see his mother enter the doorway, her body wrapped round in the same thick, but soft and cool silky fabric as we're wearing. The deep purple color makes her look absolutely regal as she smiles at me. I spread my arms. " How do I look?"

" You look wonderful." Sirius almost jumps as the woman comes into the room, the smile on her face widening. " You both do." Her hand rests softly on the golden cord around Sirius' neck before she steps back and turns towards the door. " Come, they wait."

The half moon is the only light now as I follow them out of the villa, across the bluff and down into a grove of the same twisted blooming trees from the jungle. Inside the light from a large fire in the middle of an enormous clearing lights on close to a hundred people, ten of them, all women, standing at the furthest edge so that the light cast shadows across their strong features. We pause and Sirius's mother touches my arms gently, leading me towards a group of familiar faces. Massi, dressed in a deep aqua, her children around her and a man beside her, average height and broad, like the twins, his braid tumbling down to rest at the base of his spine. He gives me a wide welcoming smile, pulling me to stand next to himself and Lysander as Sirius's mother leaves and joins the ten other women before the fire. 

Only when she's still does Sirius move, walking with sure, measured steps towards them all, stopping and kneeling in a circle of branches. An elderly woman, her calf length hair solidly white, steps from the middle of the line and her voice is low and rich as she begins speaking. Around me heads nod and murmurs ripple through the crowd. Sirius never looks away from her face. His tongue slips over the words as they flow from him in return. The woman steps back and for a moment everything is silent. 

I'm the only tense person here. Even Sirius, under the scrutiny of half his home is relaxed, kneeling in the grass. My heart almost stops when the perfect silence is broken by the woman's clap. Around her the other ten follow her, one by one until they nod and he rises.

" So you are Percy? I'm Herkul, Massi's husband." He sits down on woven mats I never noticed and around us young children, almost teenagers scurry, bringing plates heaped with steaming rice, fresh fruits and some sort of meat around. Sirius sits beside me with a flop, taking a plate from a young girl who stops before him. A boy with large eyes stops next to me, holding out the plate in his hands. He blushes when I smile at him. The girl next to him, serving a plate to Herkul says something in a litting tone that makes him scurry away as the other laugh. I feel a tugging on my arm and look down to see Thalia clambering into my lap, round face split by a smile as she touches my hair hesitantly and then happily wraps one hand in it, stroking it.

I haven't held a small child in years, since I went with Cam to visit his family, but the weight in my lap is a comforting distraction against the tiny voice in the back of my head.

::_eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye::_

Herkul has been telling me about the history of the island in between bites of the delicious rice in coconut sauce when I reach for another bit of roast bird and my hands brush an empty plate. I look down and Thalia smiles up at me, face sticky with fruit, the last of my food in her chubby hands as she giggles at me. In a moment Massi is there, putting a fresh plate into my hands and sweeping up the little girl into her arms, taking her off into the shadows under the tree and laying her down on a small blanket. 

At the edge of the clearing a shadow moves and a boy, the one who gave me my first plate steps forward, a large drum hanging around his neck, the body firmly between his legs. Around him there's a scurry of boys, including Massi's son, for a variety of instruments. Taking a deep breath the boy lifts his hands and begins beating out a quick staccato rhythm. With that steel drums, guitars, other drums and even some deep horn that echoes through the air join him. With an air of excitement a handful of women rush out into the large empty aisle that Sirius walked, dancing in a flurry of high kicks, step dancing and gyrations. 

Around them a circle forms slowly, ever widening as more and more people join the dance. Massi bursts from the circle with a wide smile and flushed face.

" Siri! This is for you! Come dance!" He shoots a pleading look at me and I lean back onto my mat, gesturing out at the dancers.

" Go dance!" Three more women appear, grabbing his wrists and pushing his back, pulling him to his feet and into the dance, giggling all the while. He locks arms between two older men and bows his head, swaying as the music changes slightly before stepping to the left two times and back right three steps before kicking up and turning with a yell, facing the inner ring of women, moving again as the music begins to pick up speed.

" Percy." My head snaps around to see Massi, who I was sure was dancing still. " I need you to come with me." Two other women are beside her, one holding a folded bundle that looks green when the light actually reaches it and the other holding a two glimmering gold bands.

" What…" They pull me to my feet and out amongst the trees, outside the ring of the main fire and into a smaller space made by four large trees and lit with four small torches.

" We've decided to surprise Sirius." One of the women starts brushing my hair out around my face as the other pulls the shirt off my shoulders and Massi starts fidgeting with the buttons on the pants.

" Hey!" She ignores me, unbuttoning the pants. " What do you think you're doing?! Get away from there!" She rocks back on her heels, looking at me with annoyance.

" First of all, it's nothing I haven't seen before, secondly I don't intend on hurting you, but we're trying to get you into a saro and full dress before the song ends. This requires that you deal with your Paccea modestly issues later." And then my pants are gone…and she's taken my shorts with them. Off to the side one of the women nudges the other, tossing her head slightly with a sly smile. Massi snaps off a terse word before wrapping my hips in what is indeed a very deep green cloth. Her hands brush against my hips as she reaches _under_ the…saro, I think she called it, and does something to it, giving it the same tug test as before. It clings just as securely as the pants. One of the women is using a quick motion to reapply oil to my back and arms and the other is slipping the smaller of the thick gold bands onto my upper arms and around my neck so that it rests above my collarbones.

" I feel like a sultans concubine." Massi grins at me, grabbing my face in one hand and sweeping the same powder as Sirius held onto my eyes, smudging the inside corner with her finger. 

" But you look wonderful. Come on!" She grabs me by my wrist, pulling me out of the circle and back to the party at a run. We stop as a new song starts, the drumming wild and abandoned. Sirius is standing there, eyes roving the crowds.

And then he looks at us and Massi giggles softly, shoving me out roughly onto the grass.

He's a force all his own as stalks over, taking me in his arms. He pulls me back against him, fitting my back against him, pulling me back into the rhythm of the music. His hands slip against my skin, gliding teasingly across my stomach.

" You have _no_ idea how much I want you right now." He wraps his arms around my waist, spinning us with a side step and carrying my weight as I left my feet to keep from tripping. " Kick your right foot as high as you can." I do, my foot almost brushing that of a handsome teenager and a woman. He pulls blunt nails over my stomach, and I shiver. " I want you right now, in front if the fire with the music still playing. I want to make you scream in time with the drums." He spins me in his arms and bends me over backwards, pressing himself against me until my hair brushes the grass. His thigh is hard between my legs , lifting me and then surging back down with me, bending me lower until I'm kneeling in the grass, trying to catch my breath as he whirls around me, kicking high over my head and bending back down, pulling me back to my feet and against him.

" How long does this last?" The last word leaves my lips in a gasp as he sinks his teeth into my neck lightly. His voice is muffled against my throat as his hips sway against mine.

" Until dawn. But I don't think it'd be amiss to skive off for a while as long as we return.." His voice is teasing as he slips his fingertips into the top of the saro. I grab his wrist with a growl, and pull him between writhing, dancing bodies and off into the trees.


	12. Into the woods

CHAPTER12

She broke your throne, she cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the hallelujah

The old hiding place is already prepared, torches blazing on each tree. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is where Massi had brought him. He takes the lead back from me, backing me against the smooth bark of a tree and sliding one hand into the top of my saro. His hands are slick from oil and sweat as he catches my mouth with his, biting lightly at my bottom lip. The echoes of the drums carry on the breeze to us.

" Now… What was that you said about drums?" He hisses, scraping blunt nails across my chest. He grins as I catch his wrist in my hand. I push off from the tree, backing him into the center of the small circle and dropping to my knees, pulling him down across my lap.

" I think it went something along the lines of fucking you to their rhythm?" He straddles my thighs, saro ridding up his legs. I slide my hands up the inside of the lean thighs, shifting them around over slick skin to rest my fingers against the knot on his hip.

" Yeah." His breath is heavy as I work at the knot inside the saro holding it on. " Something like that." In the roots of a near by tree a glint of light off glass catches my eye. It's right within arm reach as I lean to the side and pull out a smaller bottle of oil, half gone and probably "accidentally" left behind when Massi was done with Percy. I swear, if she wasn't so thoughtful, I'd kill her. 

" Look what I found." his breath is hot and wet on my neck, tongue tracing the scar there. His words are muffled, but his words sound a lot like 'convenient'. His hands wander, trying to find the trick to undoing a saro when there's a crashing from the bushes. 

She falls through the slight gap in the trees, her thick hair spilling over bare shoulders. Percy is on his feet, wrapping his hips again as I approach the girl. The skin on her back is raw, the thick fall of hair stuck to open marks in some places. Around her wrist thin manacles glint in the light and the shreds around her hips look to be part of a sarong. She's muttering into the grass, shaking her head slightly when I see it. The hair shifts off her shoulder and there it is, the dark red mark of the Dyburu. The dream weavers. Percy stands beside me, face flushed as he looks at me.

" Is she…?"

" She's alive alright. I need you to run back. Get my mother. Tell her it's a Dyburu. She'll understand what to make of it." He back away slowly, slipping through the trees and running silently towards the drumming. 

"Dyburu?" She turns her head to me, lips parted slightly and stained with blood from the broken skin there. She tries to speak and coughs. There's a cut across her face, the type a ring would make. Death eaters. They had her, I can smell the reek of their evil all over her. 

My hands shake as I gently move aside her hair, inspecting the wounds on her back. They'll heal slow and scar badly. They appear almost silently around us, the entire Madae Tokana and a handful of warriors, all standing a respectful distance from her. Percy just stares before pushing through them all and before I can say anything, falling to his knees and touching her face, inspecting the cut there. With a cry of rage my uncle has Percy by the hair. I grab his wrist before he can hurt him.

" Let go of him, he didn't know." My uncle's fingers unclench slowly, cursing all Paccea for their ignorance and myself for moving against him. " Percy." He looks at me. " You can't touch her. She's a Dyburu. A dream weaver. She's quite powerful and quite mad. The last time someone touched one this old without permission…" I gesture out to sea, towards the sunken city. His eyes are wide with disbelief.

" Old…Sirius, she barely looks twenty." I shake my head, leading him away.

" Araika is close to three hundred years old. That makes her very strong." He pulls away from me, dark eyes flashing.

" I don't care how old she is, I doubt she's going to sink your island or the Death eaters wouldn't have gotten two hits against her. She needs help." He looks at Madae and the rest of the Tokana. " I know secrets…I have a talent for healing. Let me help her." Off to the side my uncle rages about the sacrilege of letting a Paccea touch the Dyburu. My Madae silences her brother with a glare.

" If she'll permit you to touch her, you can help her." my stomach turns. I once saw the woman on the ground slip a nightmare into a man's mind and drive him mad in moments. Percy doesn't blink. He simply lays on the grass beside her.

" Araika?" Her eyes roll towards him, the whites almost lost completely. " I'm Percy. I'm here to help you. Would you like help?" My voice is tight as I translate for him. She smiles, and the breath I didn't know I was holding slips from my lungs until she begins babbling brightly, holding her hand out to him. His eyes never leave her as he sits up and helps her gently into an upright position. " What'd she say?"

" She says…your hair is a lot longer than the other one. She thought fire spirits all looked the same." His hand pauses by her face.

" Fire…" I nod.

" Has to be Ron. She's mad, like I said. She sees things in metaphors and fantasies." He puts a trembling hand to her face and she shivers a bit, giggling like a child as the redness around the cut begins to disappear. Around us the Tokana begins muttering. " Percy, what are you doing?!"

" Dunno. Just happens sometimes. Drove Madame Pomfrey mad at school...could someone get me some water please?" Madae is already at his side with a small jug of water and a cloth in hand. Araika practically coos at the attention, completely ignoring the pain I know the marks on her back can bring. She shivers as the water flows down her back, loosening the hair from the bloody welts. In the corner my uncle begins cursing, the other warriors with him. The skin across my back crawls. This is war now and my people can't win.

" We need to get the Dyburu back to town."

" She certainly can't walk like this. Look at her feet. I don't know how far away the Death Eaters are, but she's ruined her feet." Percy scolds. 

" We can't carry her, her back…"

" Hoten cra." It's the most undignified thing I can think of but it works. Everyone but Percy nods. Araika seems delighted.

" What?"

" Umm. Basically piggy back. You have to carry her though. No one else will." He shoots a half exasperated, half disgusted look at me.

" What is she? A god or a leper? You treat her like both and you have to help me get her up." She turns to me expectantly, lifting bare arms with a grin. Her skin is soft and flushed when I wrap my hands around her waist from behind, lifting her as gently as I can, setting her across Percy's hips. She leans forward, wrapping long arms around his chest and kissing his hair, singing a bit to herself. Percy stiffens, staring off into the distance, eyes unfocused.

" Percy!" He flinches as I rap my knuckles against his head, snapping him back to reality.

" Sorry…thought I saw something." He begins walking slowly off through the trees behind the Tokana, shaking his head softly.

" You _did_ see something. She's a dream weaver Percy. Her songs can make you see things."

" That would explain the look on their faces." His gaze in intense. " Remember, Nana's spell by the pond. It took me a bit to place her, but this was the girl in front of Ron and Harry." I could kick myself for not having realized. 

" Then we have to leave as soon as we can. If they're under her spell then it'll wear off in a day or so. And between the two of them…"

" They'll get themselves killed." He steps into the grove, which is cleared out, the warmth of the ashes the only clue that anyone had been there just half an hour ago. Clear of the trees and the danger of getting lost, Percy begins walking faster, hurrying back to the villa. My mother leads him into the other wing, to her own room, making arrangements for men to fetch healers and clothes while Araika continues to talk to anyone who will listen, babbling about things that make me sick to my stomach, her mind unable to connect what was done to her and the other prisoners with violence. She's too old and too mad to connect pain with the events that cause it. Reverted to an eternal innocent. Percy's hands shake as he works on cleaning the cuts on her back. " She'll wear these scars for however long she'll live." His voice is disgusted. Madae puts her hand on his shoulder as the Dyburu stretches out on her bed, closing her eyes and humming very softly to herself,. Weaving her own dreams. 

" It won't matter to her. Dyburu remember very little, it's part of their curse and blessing. She will never remember that those scars weren't always hers."

" And if they…"

" She's far to old to bear children. She'll simply weave herself a dream to hide it in until her mind believes the lie. If she remembers you, she will tell everyone she was the bride of a fire spirit." He looks sick as she leads us both to the door, touching my face. " If you two are leaving, leave now. We had no proof the Paccea stole her. Now that they know that they stole and harmed her…war parties will leave soon. I don't think anyone inside those walls would be spared."

" Harry and Ron. We have to go now." He takes Madame's hand, giving her a small sincere smile. " Thank you for your hospitality. I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances." She pulls him against her in a hug.

" It was a honor." He's taken off towards the room, leaving us alone. She has tears in he eyes when she holds me.

" Sirius…to many years went by without you and now you're leaving again…" She shakes her head, slipping into the old tongue to tell me how much she loves me and how wonderfully they will remember my life if I don't return. My eyes burn, but I don't cry. I have nothing left of sorrow. One way or another, it's over. Slowly she lets go of me, taking a step back further into the room. " You should go now, I love you sweet one."

" I love you too Madae." And she slowly turns her back to me, shoulders trembling as she cries.

Percy is already back into his jeans and undershirt, slinging things swiftly into the bag. He doesn't say a word as I slip out of the saro, folding it on the bed and slipping into my own clothing. I'm lacing up my boots when he finally picks up the flask, stopping it and slipping it gently into the bag.

" So...about how far from here is the camp? Do you know?" 

" From the path…a few miles, but we're in the open. Through the jungle we could make it there by morning, not counting in time to rest and get things ready. The war party will give us about two days to do anything we need to. To be safe, plan on being back in England or dead by tomorrow night." he simply nods, swinging the bag onto his back, jaw clenched.

" Let's go then." The streets are silent, every light extinguished as we walk for the far gate. The wooden doors close behind us with a resounding thud that shudders down my spine. The edge of the jungle is only yards away and we melt into the shadows under the canopy. Moonflowers the size of my hand almost glow in the filtered light, night birds singing eerie songs. Percy never stops looking forward, picking his way over the ground by the light of his wand.

" What's wrong?" Hmm, and Remus said I could never ask a stupider question than the time I looked down at my Newts and asked if we had a test today. Apparently Percy agrees with us both. He just stares through me.

" Please tell me I didn't just hear you ask that." His words are slow and deliberate.

" I'm thinking the same thing." He begins to walk again and I grab his arm. " Percy…this isn't about…I don't know. You're just…" I punch a tree in frustration. " I used to be a lot more eloquent than this." His gaze is back to the same blank look he wore everyday at his house. No more rage or passion, not even any despair. He's empty again. We haven't even gotten near the death eater camp and all ready it feels like we've failed.

" I lost the mission." The disgust in his voice doesn't even reach his eyes. " I was ready to change the plans, just get the boys and try for a happily ever after and fuck everyone else and what they've gone through. Not again though. Can't ever forget again." 

" Percy, what happened to the Dyburu isn't…nothing you could have done would have helped her. If anything, our delay saved her life. She would have been in the camp otherwise…" His eyes never change and it's rattling my soul. " Will you just fucking _wake up_!" My hearts racing. The longer I stare at that placid mask the more I feel there's something inside him that's going to kill us all. Not just him, or me, or Harry or Ron, all of us. That's he's ready to do anything to make it stop. He blinks once at me, never smirks or glares or changes his expression and I think I might snap. His eyes don't even register the same surprise as mine when I shove him against a tree, pinning his body with mine and grabbing his face in my hands. I once saw Percy deck one of his brothers for forcing their way into his personal space. His eyes _almost_ lose that mask.

" Get the fuck off me." He says it like he's asking the time or commenting on how lovely the fauna is.

" Fuck you." His eyes begin to shatter as I press my forehead against his, bracing my forearms on either side of his face. " I'm not going to let you go into that fucking camp and kill Harry and Ron because you think you don't feel it and you don't care and then you do something stupid!" His eyes finally snap into tiny pieces of anger and I almost smile.

I forgot about his fists until one slams into my kidneys.

" How dare you!" He drops down to his knees over me, pinning my arms with his shins. " Who are you to think that I would _ever…ever_ hurt my brother!" The breath I've almost caught leaves me in a whoosh as he punches my stomach again, taking another cheap shot before leaning down and pinning me the same way I held him, his hair cutting off the small amounts of moonlight that had filtered thought the trees. " Fuck. You." I can hear his fingers ripping the grass out by my ears as his fingers clench in the grass, his voice dropping to a low almost melodic string of curses as he lowers his face as close as he can to mine, breathing the words out of his mouth and into mine. Even as he curses me, calling me things I didn't know could sound so dirty, he's pulling back into his shell, eyes hard and slick.

" You only lose the mission when you separate from it. You might think you lost the mission earlier, but it's completely gone now." He shakes his head.

"Shut-up." And the glazed look slips away from him, so I naturally keep talking saying random, probably stupid things that don't make sense until he shifts his weight and closes his mouth over mine so hard my inner lip slides roughly over my lower incisors, slipping blood into my mouth. His tongue finds it as he pushes harder against me, shaking. One hand is pulling at my shirt, searching for skin desperately, shivering when his palm meets my chest.

" I don't…" His words catch in his throat as he buries his face in my neck, fingers pulling roughly at the button. " It feels like….I can't be that way again I…you make it stop. Forgive me." He jerks his hand downward, ripping buttons and fabric. The air is warm and soft on my skin as he runs his hands down my ribs with heart wrenching desperateness. I try to touch his hair and he shakes my hand away, working his way down my body with a single-minded determination to lose himself. He's mapped every scar and muscle with teeth and tongue and fingers, making little desperate noises every moment of the way, always shaking my hands off when I go to touch him.

" Percy…" I push the hair out of his face and he sits up with a lunge, my belt in his hands. I didn't even notice the belt out of my pants.

" Don't touch me. I will belt you to that tree if I have to, but please don't touch me…" I push myself up onto my elbows and cup his face, kissing him softly and calling his bluff

" Do what you have to."

Two minutes and a surprised me later I'm secured to a tree by a collective 62 inches of black and brown leather as he tosses my boots over his shoulder. He rests his head just above the waistband of my jeans, taking deep breaths, whispering against my skin, tongue sliding across sensitive skin, following the decent of my jeans with his tongue, hands everywhere they should be. His palm is soft as he wraps his hand around me squeezing gently and breathing softly across the tip of my erection. I dig my feet into the warm earth and arch up, pulling against the two belts.

They don't give an inch and he takes every advantage of my position in all the right ways, breath whispering across me.

And then he's over me, eyes luminescent in the moonlight.

" 'M sorry." And he's heat and friction and pleasure almost pain and no matter how hard I pull at the belts they hold securely, no matter how I dig or twist or arch and the whole time he just whispers he's sorry.

I don't remember sleeping, but when dawn comes and the sunlight hits my face I awake…still belted firmly to a tree, naked and alone.

He's taken the bag and gone.

" Fuck." I tilt my head up, looking at where I'm belted together and groan at the thick intricate knot. I push myself upwards, rolling over and sitting so that I face the tree and begin to pick at the leather holding me captive. " Oh Percy…and you thought you were sorry last night. Wait until I catch you."

The woods are warm and dark as I let him pull me through them until we reach the same small circle of trees I just left. He shoots me a grin over his shoulder and I take the lead from him, walking him back against a tree, sliding my hand across the smooth skin of his stomach, feeling it slid against the sweat and oil and into the top of the saro. I nip at his lips between kisses.

" Now what was that you said about drums?" His breath catches ever so slightly in his throat as I drag blunted nails down his chest through the oil. His palm is slick but his grip still firm when he catches my wrist, pushing off from the tree with a feral grin that shots through me. He pushes me backwards into the middle of the small clearing, eyes firmly locked to mine as he drops to his knees, pulling me down over him. The air is hot and thick and heavy around us, scented with oil and sex and filled with the wafting sounds of horns and drums that makes my skin tingle. 

" I think it went something along the lines of fucking you to their rhythm?" He draws every word out as long as he can, running hands across my back as I twist, slipping my legs along his waist to kneel over his lap. The saro creeps up my thighs and his eyes are bright, like moonlight on dark waters as his hand follows it.

" Yeah." My breath catches as his knuckles brush my hip as he works the stubborn knot holding the cloth over me. " Something like that." His hand stills as his eyes focus over my shoulder with an amused glint. He stretches up and left, baring a long line of sleek muscles and skin just begging for a mouth.

It's a wonderful thing I'm so very obliging and even better that the oil isn't as distasteful as Sirius would have me believe. In fact, I think I may actually like the odd woodsy, spicy taste as I trace over the scar above his collarbone.

" Hmm, look what I found." He flashes a small glass philter at me, a thick layer of amber gleaming inside it. The rest of the oil from earlier. I bite lightly at the muscle surrounding the scar, feeling him shiver beneath me.

" Convenient." His skin is almost thrumming under my fingertips as I slide them down, trying to discover the secrets of a saro.

I've almost got it too when something crashes through the bushes and falls with in an ungraceful heap inside the trees. I'm on my feet reaching for my wand before I realize three things. One I don't _have_ my wand. Two, it's just a girl, native by the looks and quite exhausted. And three, that Sirius managed to get the knot on this almost completely undone be cause it is now in a puddle at my feet and I am naked. Sirius is already approaching her on wary feet as I give up trying to rewrap this damnable thing and simply tie it in an easy knot at my hip, going to his side.

She's tall and slender like many of the women I've seen here, but her hair falls in curls to her waist instead of the straight heavy hair of everyone else I've seen. Her legs are indecently bare, and then covered only by the dirty tatters of what was probably a long and beautiful black silk sarong. The nails of her hands are ragged and torn, the tips of her fingers raw and around her wrists are ungodly thick and heavy manacles. Her back is an field of open welts. She's been beaten, badly.

" Is she…" The word okay dies on my tongue as his face goes a sick shade of gray.

" She's alive alright." He seems to be muttering mostly to himself as I can quite obviously alive. She's scrubbing her face back and forth in the grass, muttering to herself. The look in his eyes when he looks at me is empty and dazed. " I need you to run back. Get my mother. Tell her it's a Dyburu. She'll know what to make of it." 

I feel as if I've been struck in the face with icy water as I back slowly away, watching him kneel almost fearfully beside the figure, my feet picking out the more direct path towards the music. Massi gives me an confused look as I dash out of the woods, obviously not having sex with her cousin. If I were thinking I might be disturbed by the fact that she's disturbed by that fact, but I'm not thinking about anything except the woman dancing in a circle of elder women. I dash up to her and open my mouth when I realize I don't even know her name.

Perhaps the look on my face is enough for her, she breaks the circle, her expression grave in the flickering fire.

" What's wrong?"

" Sirius said to bring you. He said to tell you it's a Dyburu and you'd understand…" She pulls back, gesturing sharply with her arms and the music stops like a needle torn off a record. She shouts several long sentences in her language and people scatter silently. Massi is running on those small swift feet of hers, Thalia giving a sleepy wail as she's slung upwards with little gentleness. Around me two dozen men and the entire group of older women all stare at me with solemn faces, Sirius' mother touching my arm gently. My stomach lurches at the thought of being asked to guide them back.

" Where are they?" She asks gently. I give a breath I didn't know I was holding.

" A circle of trees, about three minutes runs from here." She nods, giving a small half smile and tucks up her skirt around firm strong legs.

" We all know it well I think. Come." I follow them through the darkness of the forest, ignoring the tiny voice of amusement in the back of my mind.

He took me to the local make-out spot.

And a few minutes later the little voice really doesn't care as everyone stops almost two yards back from Sirius and the girl who's rolled her head towards us all, her eyes childishly large in a heart shaped face covered over in bruises. No one else seems to notice or care about the tears welling up in her eyes, they just stand far back. Even Sirius isn't touching her. I squeeze between Herkul and an older man, kneeling beside the girl and staring down at the angry infected red surrounding a long jagged cut across her cheek. When she looks up at me her eyes are, if possible, deeper black than anyone else's here. Bottomless and velvety as they give me a mute pleading look. I take her face in my hand, reaching for the gash across the smooth warm skin when someone gives an angry roar and a sharp blazing pain pulls me off my balance and onto my rear in an uncomfortable sprawl. Above me stands the older man I pushed by, his face creased in outrage, Sirius' hand gripped tightly around the others' wrist.

" Let go of him, he didn't know." The man unclenches a vice grip from my hair, spitting a long stream of what is obviously highly uncomplimentary words about myself and probably my heritage, parenthood, and from the look on Sirius' face perhaps a few choice phrases towards him too. " Percy." His voice is low and serious as I meet his eyes. " You can't touch her. She's a Dyburu." It must be apparently obvious that means nothing to me. " A dream weaver. She's quite powerful and quite mad. The last time someone touched one this old without permission…" He gestures out to the shadows in the ocean, his voice thick with an almost disbelieving tone. I look at her again, face still drawn into a pouting plea.

" Old…Sirius, she barely looks twenty." He gives her a wary look and catches my wrist, helping me up and leading me away from her.

" Araika is close to three hundred years old. That makes her _very_ strong." He's gone mad. I glare at him, pulling my wrist from his grasp.

" I don't care how old she is, I doubt she's going to sink your island or the Death Eaters would never have gotten two hits on her." From the aura of fear and worship it's obvious only a Death Eater would dare to touch this girl. " She needs help." I turn to the conferring women. " I know secrets…I have a talent for healing. Let me help her." I can feel the tips of my fingers growing cold and numb already at the thought. Nana called it the cursed gift. It doesn't always work. I'm just glad it's working now. Behind me the man who tried to rip my scalp from my skull flies into a rage and Sirius' mother silences him with just a glare.

" If she'll permit you to touch her, you can help her." Araika gives me a wary look and Sirius makes a small noise beside me as I kneel on the grass beside her, stretching out so that our eyes are level, pitching my voice to her as if she were a child.

" Araika?" There's little white in her eyes now. I think she may be going into shock. " I'm Percy. I'm here to help you. Would you like help?" Sirius' voice is a tight as he translates my words. Her entire face changes as she gives a sweet smile, beginning to babble rather quickly at me, proffering her hand. Her voice is melodic and silvery as I help her sit carefully. " What did she say?" 

" She says…your hair is a lot longer than the other one. She thought all fire spirits looked the same." My fingers stop short of grazing her face, turning to look at him

" Fire…" He nods jerkily.

" Has to be Ron. She's mad, like I said. She sees things in metaphors and fantasies." My hand is shaking when I finally brush my fingers across her face, watching the angry red fade from her face. She shivers and giggles like a child. From behind us comes the firsts amazed mutterings. " Percy!" His voice is desperate under the cracking façade of calm. " What are you doing?!"

Dunno. Just happens sometimes." More specifically in every seventh generation of Weasley's, but it's a bad time to get into genealogy. " Drove Madame Pomfrey mad at school…could someone get me some water please?" Sirius' mother is standing beside me, a small jug of water and a soft cloth in her hand. I give her a grateful smile. In front of me the girl is all but cooing, and seems to have forgotten completely about her every injury, talking happily to Sirius instead as I pour the water down her bare back, gently lifting the heavy hair out of the raw welts.

The cursing from the warriors is fierce until Herkul steps forward, giving the girl a half frightened, half worshipful look as she smiles at him.

" We need to get the Dyburu back to town." I look down at the soles of her bare feet, thick thorns buried in the tender flesh in parts and torn open in others.

" She certainly can't walk like this! Look at her feet. I don't know how far away the Death Eaters are. But she's ruined her feet." Herkul makes a distraught face.

" But we can't carry her…her back…"

" Hoten cra." Every one is looking at Sirius, half as if he's lost his mind, the rest as if he's blasphemous genius. Araika seems positively delighted with the fact, leaving only myself ignorant.

" What?"

" Umm, basically piggy back. You'll have to carry her though. No one else will." Including himself. I give him a glare, not sure if I'm disgusted or just tired.

" What is she, a God or a leper? You treat he like both and you'll have to help me get her up." She turns to him as if she understood me, or maybe she just understood the words piggyback ride. Either way she lifts soft bare arms to him with a grin. He takes a deep breath before wrapping his arms around her waist carefully from behind, lifting and setting her across my hips. She winces a bit but leans forward, wrapping long limbs around me and after a moment, kissing my hair contentedly, opening her mouth and making an odd melodic noise

__

::I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be in bed right now. I furrow my brow, trying to think of where I should be…

" Percy…" His hands go right for the ticklish spots under my ribs as he leans across. The noise I make is utterly undignified and to much like a squeak as I curl up and roll over and *off* the bed, glaring up at Cam who gives me an impish look, leaning down and kissing my forehead. " Welcome back Space cadet." He lounges across the bed, giving me his hand and helping to pull me back onto the warm bed and into the stream of sunlight dancing through the prisms dangling interspersed in the wind chimes. A small rainbow dances across his face. " Where were you just now oh mental one?"

" I don't know." I curl my head up so that it rests on his bare chest, tracing the inked lines of his tattoo as I listen to his heart beat. " I'm fairly sure it wasn't a right mental place for a day like today though." In her tank Zoe is chasing the little rainbows that reflect through her water and it's just a perfect day that I can't seem to keep my mind firmly on. He strokes down the nape of my neck in that way that makes me with I could purr.

" Then what's wrong?"

I just…I feel like I should be somewhere else." He gives me a mock wounded look, his eyes glinting with amusement as he leans over me, brushing a kiss against my cheek. His goatee almost softly scratchy against my skin.

" Why would you want to be anywhere other than here?" I give him a small smile.

" I don…"::

A sharp pain cuts through my head and Sirius is yelling my name and for a moment there are two separate worlds. A nightmare returned to a dream and a momentary dream that's become a nightmare all over again. Before I can jump back into the one I want it's gone and I'm back in the glade's dying torchlight

" Sorry…thought I saw something." I adjust the extra weight across my hips and follow off behind the disappearing backs of the women. Sirius slips through the trees, walking pace with me.

" You _did_ see something. She's a dream weaver Percy. Her songs can make you see things."

And then, in one of those almost painful moments of clarity you wish you could live without, I know what feels like everything. I know who this girl is beyond the superstition and titles they've given me. I know who she is and why she's hurt and everything I have to do to make up for the most glaring piece of knowledge of all. I don't let him know that I've just figured out every move I have to make now. Ron's not the only chess player in the family yet. Instead I just give him the first piece. Araika is the girl from Nana's spell. The dreamy eyed girl swaying and singing with the empty look. He curses under his breath.

" Then we have to leave as soon as we can. If they're under her spell it'll wear off in a day 0r so and then the two of _them_…"

" They'll get themselves killed." My foot touches the grass of the empty clearing and as presumptions as it is to say, I'm on familiar ground and resettle her weight higher on me, picking up the pace and hurrying down the path to the Villa, following only Sirius' mother across the cobblestones and into the darkened house, down a hall and into a large room of warm woods and un-dyed fabrics.

Apparently Araika can't focus on more than one thing and as long as she's talking to anyone who will meet her eyes and nod or smile her mind blocks the pain she must obviously be in. Around us the room empties swiftly and I stand at the edge of the bed, cleaning the cuts thoroughly with the bowl of warm water someone sits on the edge of a near by table. Sirius looks positively ill as he talks with her and my hands shake as the water turns from clear to a watery red.

" She'll wear these scars for however long she'll live." His mother's hand is comforting on my shoulder as Araika grows weary of talk and in what appears to be the middle of a word turns her back on Sirius to stretch out on her stomach, cradling her head in her arms and humming very softly to herself.

" It won't matter to her." Her voice is soft and regretful. " Dyburu remember very little. It's part of her blessing and her curse. She will never remember that those scars weren't always hers." On the bed she wiggles slightly, arranging herself more comfortably and she really is very, _very_ beautiful. It burns like ice in my stomach.

" And if they…" She gives my shoulder a squeeze before stepping away, laying the lightest of fabrics over the girls' lower body.

" She's far to old to bear children. She'll simply weave herself a dream to hide it in until her mind believes the lie. If she remembers you…" Her eyes are sad. " She will tell everyone she was the bride of a fire spirit." I feel like I've been smacked as I follow her to her door, only half listening to her talk of war parties until she mentions that no one inside Death Eater walls would be spared.

" Harry and Ron." She nods. " We have to go now." I take her hand and give her the only smile I can pull from the sickening swirl of emotions inside. " Thank you for your hospitality. I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances." She pulls me into an embrace and she's so warm I almost want to collapse and stay in the safety a mother's embrace, no matter who the mother is, can provide. Instead I begin to pull away, standing at arms length as she gives me one last smile.

" It was an honor." And then I do have to leave before I do just give in to the biggest epiphany I've ever had as well as the most disappointing.

I almost quit it all. 

The saro hit's the floor in the doorway as I hop into my jeans. Even if I did feel like searching out my underwear they'd just end up melted to me before the sun sets tomorrow and who wants boxers melted to their body, even if you only know for a moment. My head hurts from every thought running laps inside, screaming their opinions at me at once.

__

::You forgot, you abandoned, could be dead, could be beaten, could be Ron, could be Harry, could have helped the girl, you quit, you lost…:: 

I'm slinging everything into the bag when Sirius walks into the room, still dazed. He must have let himself forget that we don't get a happily ever after or even a no-so-bad-for-a-while. Not anymore. I don't touch the Dresdenaire until the last moment, stopping it and slipping it into the front of the satchel.

" So…about how far from here is the camp? Do you know?" My voice almost scares me. It's to soft and even. Sirius never looks up. Just laces his boots.

" From the path? A few miles, but we're in the open. Through the jungle we could make it there by morning not counting in any time to rest or get things ready." He jerks on the laces to tight I'm surprised they don't snap in his hands. " The war party will give us about two days to do anything we need to. To be safe, plan on being back in England or dead by tomorrow night." His hand trembles ever so slightly as he finishes tying his boots. I swing the bag onto my back across my shoulder and nod at him. The jungle. 

" Let's go then." The house is silent and the streets are empty. No lights flicker from the small apartment style homes along the main streets or the larger houses closer to the thick wooden gate at the end of the cobblestone road. Only one sentry stands there, barely visible as he lets us through and closes the door behind us with a very heavy thud. Beside me Sirius shudders before taking a deep breath and leading me through the moonlight and into the thick jungle. I pull out my wand, lighting the darkness and pushing forward, only occasionally stopping to let Sirius point the direction. In my head the accusations are louder.

__

::you're leading him to death. You poison what you touch, you're killing another one, you're a failure, you're a quitter, you lost the mission…::

" What's wrong?"

That shuts even the voices up as I turn and just _look_ at him.

" Please tell me I didn't just hear you ask that." His face has a hint of a flush.

" I'm thinking the same thing." I turn away form him, taking a step towards the opening almost path I can vaguely see. He grabs my arm and I almost fall. My insecurities are mocking my balance as well now. Wonderful. I'm being mocked by myself and still managing to resent it. Sirius is stumbling over words in his frustrations and anger. A young tree, close me shudders as he punches it. " I used to be a lot more eloquent than this."

Part of me aches for him. So close to the option of leaving. If I can say the right thing, he would go back through the gates. Or so say the stupid thoughts holding my brain and body captive. The rest of me knows nothing short of tying him here will keep him here and nothing short of hearing at sicknesses inside me forced out into a few random words will soothe his mind.

" I lost the mission." I want to stop there. That's all I need to say, but it flows out of me anyway as little jumbles of everything I'm thinking but not really. " I was ready to change the plans, just get the boys and try for happily ever after and fuck everyone else and what they're gone through. Never again though." It's odd, I've never had quite as…active imagination as my siblings, but I can see Araika lying on the bed where we left her, singing lies to herself until she feels clean, never understanding why she feels dirty in the first place. " Can't ever forget again." He looks as though he saw my very thought.

" Percy, what happened to the Dyburu isn't…" He takes a deep breath. " Nothing you could have done would have helped her. If anything our delay saved her life. She would have been in the camp otherwise…"

And that thought should scare me. I should see her large velvety eyes right now and be sicker to my soul than I am, but maybe there isn't any more room to bottle down sickness. Something in his eyes break as he looks at me a second before I find my back against a tree, my breath shallow form the impact.

" Will you fucking wake up!" His face is inches from mine as he rests his forearms on either side of my head and he presses against me, glaring into my eyes. Apparently there is room in the emotion soup for rage that doesn't even sound like rage.

" Get the fuck off me." It's the same cold dead voice I've used all night. Almost makes me wonder if I might be in a bit of shock. He just leans closer to me.

" Fuck you." My eyes watch his lips as they wrap around rude, almost cruel words with part detached fascination and a lot of that rage I have swimming around. I only half hear what he says and barely feel my fist piston out to sink into the flesh of his lower stomach. Sometimes I don['t even know what I'm saying, only that I mean it. I mean it as I hit him again, leaning over him, boxing in his head the way he did mine.

" Fuck. You." I curl my fingers into the grass by his head. Grass, We're on the ground now.

And it's finally hit me, my epiphany was right. I've burnt out. I thought I was better, but I'm not. Everything in the past weeks has been false. There's still not enough left inside me to save.

" You only lose the mission when you separate from it." Somehow that reaches me through my fog. " You might think you lost the mission earlier, but it's completely gone now." I shake my head. I have the mission better now than ever. Now I don't have the crushing sense of life hanging over me. How dare he say I've lost it, when he shouldn't even have it in the first place.

" Shut-up." and he doesn't. Instead he says everything he can think of, talking about Harry and Ron and my mother and his and anything he can think of that really _w0uld_ distract me from the mission. Dirt fills the space under my nails as I grip the grass tighter, taking his mouth. I push down against him, tongue slipping over the torn lining of his lip and for one selfish moment, I realize I don't want the mission, regardless of the fact that when dawn comes it's mine again. I don't want to be burnt out and empty and I want everything I've felt back, right now, all at once, false or not. He lifts his hips slightly against me as I pull at his shirt, slipping my hand against his chest, hiding from myself in the safety of the crook of his neck.

I'm trying to tell him all this as my fingers go after his buttons roughly, but it's all just a stumbling stutter as I hook my hand in the neck and rip downwards. The rending of fabric is almost soothing until he touches my hair pulling me out of the world consisting just of his body and back to where I'm going to pull him into my mission. I shake his hand off, concentrating on his chest, tracing every scar up and down, fingers gliding across the raised skin, and it's smoothness, and his hand brushes my shoulder. I shrug him off, burying my head in his stomach and nip warningly. He doesn't get the message. This is mine. My last time to just…be. So I'm covering every plane and ridge of his skin and muscles with fingers, tongue and teeth and every time I lose myself in the scent and taste of skin and oil and sweat and even fear he touches me, even calling my name and touching my face. I slide up his body, pulling the belt from his pants as I go.

" Don't touch me." My voice is weak. " I will belt you to that tree if I have to," I point to the small tree four feet away. " But please don't touch me…" For a moment he looks like he'll do like I ask. That he can just lie there and let lose myself. That he'll lie there and just moan and not realize that he'll never feel this or anything like it again. Instead he sits up, catching my face in between his palms and giving me a very soft kiss.

" Do what you have to."

And what I have to do is take off my own belt and fasten them together in a tight knot and then fasten him to the tree.

Only takes me about two or three minutes too. Not bad. He's still staring up at his hands in shock as I pull his boots off his feet, throwing them behind me. He's still staring at the belts when I undo his trousers and he's only looking at the sky when I begin to slide them off.

And then he's mine. Mine to watch and take and…I can't think it. Can't hope for it, can't believe it. I dip my tongue into the hollow of his hip , sucking and biting. He begins fighting the belts, digging his feet into the soft earth and arching his back, pulling against the leather bindings and giving himself to me at the same time as I wrap my hand around him, tracing the smooth, slick skin. One last taste of smooth slick elastic skin. It seems absurd that just. Oh god, just days ago I moved under him much the same as he's arching under me and telling myself I wanted him because I could never love him.

Oh, how I lied. 

" 'M sorry." He'll never know why I'm apologizing. He'll never know my soul is screaming that we should be making love slowly in the grassy glade behind his villa. That it protests a stolen moment before the end of our world. Or that I've just had a heartbreakingly wonderful idea. He'll never know how sorry I really am. Thank god he'll never know how sorry I am.

The heat and anger and exertion work for me. His breath slips from shallow breathy pants to a deeper rhythmic pattern as he slips into sleep.

And I know I should move from him as soon as he sleeps, but I give myself one more long moment pressed against him before sliding off and searching up my clothes, slipping back into them silently and picking up the bag, slipping out through a space in between two trees.

In the bag my hand closes around the large flask and I pull it out, staring at it in the wand light. Without the trigger it would take a week in my bloodstream to trigger detonation. I take a deep breath and uncork the flask, turning it up to my lips and swallowing as much as I can, flinging the glass into the brush. It tastes like stale petrol and overripe fruit and I may be sick, but I doubt it.

Taking the cross from around my neck I unwind Sirius' hair from it, watching the magic weave around it with burning eyes. Two minutes in and there's already pain.

Cam, what you felt must have been unbearable.

Five minutes in and my temperature has leveled off to that of a man with a fever as I tuck the port key into my shirt pocket.

No matter what happens now, I can't change my mind. 

I have the mission.


	13. Burn

CHAPTER 13

I don't know how much time he has on me, but he gains another twenty minutes as I untie myself and gather my clothes. 

" You…" There are no words for him. Well there are, but I'm going to save them and tell him to his face. There's only one place south of the path big enough for a camp. And I know the shortest path there. I can catch him, if I run.

I run all the way to the river and there are fresh tracks there. Sneakers. The world shifts and blurs and the smells come swirling through the air as I sniff the track. Remnants of sweet oils carry up from the soft sands. Percy. 

The world snaps back into colored focus and I'm kneeling in the sand, sorting through the information my dog brain couldn't. Percy was here, an hour or so ago. Not that much of a head start after all and he followed the river down to the bridge.

That gives me the advantage as I kick my feet out of my boots and head across the river.

A five minute swim versus a twenty minute walk. At this rate I'll catch him quickly.

Unless someone else already did. The thought stops me cold before it adds speed to my run. He doesn't think ahead. I have to laugh. Percy Weasley never thinking ahead. He's changed so much and I have to admit, I'll miss that. I'll miss the impulsive Percy when he's gone

__

::dead::

Back to being the same boy he was.

__

::He'll never be the boy he was. He'll always be different. This war takes no prisoners.::

I stop, dropping into a crouch as something moves clumsily through the brush off to my right. Death eaters. I reach for my boot knife…which is sitting in my boot half an hour away on the other side of the river.

Fuck.

The rustling grows closer. In fact, it's coming right fucking for me. That leaves me two choices. Run, which will take me far off course, or attack, bare handed and hope a man popping out of the bushes will give me the surprise time I need to disarm and …disable him.

I wait as he treads closer and lunge out, grabbing onto a bare arm…

And promptly let go, clutching my burnt hand to my chest and staring at Percy who gazes back with glassy eyes and sighs.

" Fuck. Got loose already?"

" Yes I fucking got loose! Have you lost your Bloody mind?" I flex my left hand experimentally. " Traste Paccea Bastard." He gives me a small grin and wavers on unsteady feet. I reach out for him and he moves quickly backwards.

" Don't touch me. You'll burn yourself again." My stomach drops out.

" You took the fucking potion didn't you?" He gives me a small shrug and blinks slowly. " What's happening to you?"

" The heat…My body temperature is to high. It's effecting my motor skills slowly. I hadn't planned on this. We have a few hours at best to do this before I can't do anything other than die."

" You know how to put a time limit on things, don't you?" He cocks an eyebrow.

" You're the one who told me to plan on being dead by tonight."

Damn my big mouth.

" Can you run?"

" I'm not track material anymore, but I can keep up. How far away are they?"

" Half a mile, maybe. What are we doing when we get there?" He pulls the bag around in front of himself and the smell of heating leather is sickening. I take it from his hands and he smiles weakly at me.

" There's a glass bottle in there. When we reach the camp we hurl that at gate and get back really fucking quickly."

" And then?"

" And then…that's going to take out quite a lot and in the confusion we go in…through the back." I stare at him.

" Our plan sucks." He grins at me.

" Yeah. Let's hope our sucky plan works." Dear God, we're going to need a miracle to pull this off. " Come on."

He can barely keep up with me. He stumbles twice across on open field and hold himself up on a tree when we get close enough to see the gate.

" I think You're going to have to do this part yourself. I couldn't make it away in time. I'll head for the rear exit." He reaches for me and then pulls his hand back sharply, closing his fist tightly. " I'll see you there." 

It hurts to watch him bolt off, stumbling once before he finds his feet. He's degenerating as I watch. It's sickening. I edge towards the front gate and then out into the open, strolling up and grinning at the confused guard on duty before hurling the bottle right at him. It shatters right below him and he just stares at me. I wink and run as hard as I can into the trees.

The shockwaves of hot air throw me off my feet and face first into the ground. The screams are already carrying on the wind

Percy is standing outside the back gate a young man with short tawny blond hair at his feet, curled around himself.

" I'm only going to ask you one more time before I really hurt you. Where are my Brother and Harry, Malcolm?" As I get closer I can see bits of a nasty burn on the man's arms and face. With a sigh Percy reaches down and grabs his face in both hands and the boy gives off a choked gasp of pain. " I swear, I'll burn your eyes out of your head with my fingers Malcolm. Where are they?"

" The cave!" His voice was shrill, but it still didn't carry over the roar of the flames and the screams. " The garrison's in the cave!" Percy stands slowly, the wood of the gate heating under his hand as he supports himself.

" And which way is this cave Malcolm? Please don't make me come back down there."

" Far side." His hands shake as he gestures off through the jungle. " The Dark lords camp." Before Percy can move I have him against the wall.

" There's another camp?" His face is going pale from shock. I figure we only have another couple of minutes at the most before he's useless. " What's there?"

" Prisoners the Dark lord wants personally. Potter, his brother, the girl…" His eyes roll in his head as I slam him against the wall.

" What girl?"

" The retarded one." He smirks at me. " One of your kind I think. The attic was empty but the house was solid." I see red, literally. Before I can so much as land one justifiable punch into his smug little face, Percy's there, his arm a flash and then Malcolm falls to the ground, trying to hold his throat together. Percy frowns.

" Should have gotten better directions from him than that. Well, he pointed this way…" Percy takes a few halting steps before I grab the tail of his shirt, which is unpleasantly warm.

" Percy, if there was another camp on the island, the Tokana would have known. He gave that information up to easily. It was to rehearsed. They're here, in this compound." He looks confused for a moment, blinking dry eyes.

" And if they aren't?" His voice is slow and unsteady. " I reach in the bag and pull out a couple of fragile looking glass balls.

" Let's just hope I'm right." I take a deep breath and round the corner of the gate, slipping among the brush. What type of villain keeps easily accessible brush near his back entrance? I'm almost amused, until I look to my left into the heart of the compound. When Percy said whatever that was would take out quite a bit he was serious. Half the camp is burning and no matter what the frantic people running around do, it only burns higher. A figure goes to the ground, his long gray robes flaming. He rolls and writhes and screams…and the fire only burns higher. " Jesus Christ." Percy just staggers further into the compound, eyes trained on something across the winding piece of river they built across.

" Cave." He says shortly. I look over and sure enough there's a small niche in the wall of a rock face, the two Death Eaters guarding it running as fast as they can across the small bridge spanning the water. "Come on." I lead him through the brush at a crouch until we reach the end, a few yards away from the river. 

" That can't be everyone. Percy, what do these do?" I thrust the tiny glass orbs under his nose and the pearly green liquid inside one sloshes up while the red powder in the other shifts. He gives he a half grin.

" Why don't you throw them into the action and find out?" Luckily they're small and fit into my palm as I draw my arm back, stand up and hurl them as far as I can into the flames. There's a tiny explosion, barely enough to rock the ground and I lift an eyebrow at Percy. 

But then the cloud starts to move out across the flaming area instead of up.

" Don't breath it and come on!" He's running as fast as he can towards the river, jumping in and swimming with surprising dexterity as I follow him. The water is cold here, coming off the mountain. When he climbs slowly out his eyes are clearer as we turn and watch a death eater stagger to the bridge, his eyes red from burst blood in a paper pale face. He falls to the ground and a small cloud of gray smoke seeps out of his lungs and dissipates. 

" I can't let that get across the island!" Percy shoves his hand in the water and then quickly reaches into the bag and grasps two more orbs, both filled with a pearly black liquid and runs across the bridge, throwing them as hard as he can. They barely reach the edge of the fire, but it's enough apparently because he staggers back across the bridge, almost completely dry from the heat of his own body.

" For the last time, _Come On_!" I follow his into the mouth of the cave, staring as a niche barely big enough for a man turns out to be absolutely huge, a long corridor with two doors, one on either side and one at the far end. I kick open the one to my left as I hear him curse the other one out of existence. There's a body in mine. The remains of a woman. She's been there for a long time, the smell is overpowering, but what's left of her features is familiar. There's a long braided leather necklace woven through with gold around her neck. The Keeper. Arakia's minder. I turn and Percy is gone, a silent shadow inside the other cell. 

They're chained side by side, Harry's head hanging to the side so that it almost seems to rest on Ron's shoulder. If either of them is breathing I can't tell from here in the gloom.

" I can't touch them. I don't know if…" Percy's face is distraught as I squeeze past him, laying my hand on Ron's neck first, as much as I long to check Harry. The pulse there is faint but there. I nod once before laying hands on my Godson. For a moment I don't feel a thing, but then I catch the lightest of throbbing under my fingers.

" Alive. Won't survive an apperation without treatment. Anything in this destructive little bag of yours for healing?"

" Potion in the square bottomed flask. Won't bring them round, but might…fix their heart rates." He holds his own for a moment, leaning heavily against the wall. I dig it out, sighing at the familiar blue liquid and take turns dumping half down each boy's throat. I drop the bag and stand, taking Percy's smoldering wand from his hand. "Alohamora!" No great shock when the chains stay firmly fastened.

" Sirius, I think someone's coming."

" Bloody hell." And I do the only thing I can think of, I transfigure the chains into noodles and bite through them. In there doorway there's a sickening, but amused laugh.

" Oh if the rumors had only been true. If I could have had you instead of that pathetic Pettigrew. Peter would never have thought of that. Really Black, noodles?" I turn slowly, one hand protectively on each boys' chest and finally look at the man who took James life, lily's life…my life. 

I don't know why I still expected the demon that haunted Harry's nightmares. Everyone knew Voldemort reclaimed his old face and Body, but it's still a shock to see Eyes the same color as my cousins staring at me with a coldly amused glint out of a fairly handsome face. The voice though, the voice is still high and cold and completely inhuman.

" What can I say, I was hungry?" Percy smirks of all things as Voldemort lounges against the door, wand twirling idly between his fingers.

" You know I'm going to kill you all slowly for this. I'll make you beg me for death, break your spirits until you worship me as a god, and then kill you. Although, the temptation to take a break and work torturing your families into the routine to keep it spiced up is hard to resist." He straightens up in the doorway and his height blocks the bit of light filtering in. The son of a bitch must be at least six foot seven. " Now do we make this hurt a lot, or a hell of a lot?" 

" A hell…"

" Sirius!" I turn my head to look at Percy right as a blur of spinning gold smacks my face, falling neatly around my neck…and pulling me with a jerk out of the prison, Harry and Ron with me.

I have to stop every few minutes and cast the spell again.

" Point me." The wand spins like a compass needle and motions down the river again. I've been staggering under this hot sun down this river for what feels like hours on end, but perhaps just an hour or more. I know there must be an easier more effective spell…but I can't remember it.

I take a step down the sandy banks and my foot slips from under me, spilling me to the ground.

" Fuck, fuck, bloody fucking hell!" I pound the sand and some gets in my eyes. My fine motor skills are going, quickly. I don't know what the Death Eaters did differently, but this batch of the Dresdenaire seems so much quicker then what they gave Cam. Three hours in and I can hardly walk in a straight line. I try to blink the sand out of my eyes when I realize no tears are washing it away. They've literally dried up, dried out of my body. I go over to the water and dunk my face in, pulling back just as quickly.

The water is painfully cold on my skin, almost burning in the way only ice can. Steam rises off my skin as I hurriedly wipe my face dry on my shirt. So this is truly the monster we created. Searing pain with no relief, the only release just as painful as the slow cooking of your body around you. My vision is still slightly blurred as I stand slowly heading back the way the wand pointed until I reach the bridge. It's ancient, constructed of smooth water worn stones and wood so old it's been bleached white. I take a hesitant step and the planks groan alarmingly but hold as I step out onto it. The water rushing below me sends a shiver down my spine and a take a breath, running across the bridge, wobbling and falling roughly against the side. For a moment my overworked heart skips a long painful beat as the sides sway outward but hold me up, out of the painfully cold water, which must be a comfortable sixty degrees at least. On the other side of the bridge I look around the same thick jungle that's surrounded me the entire way along and take ut my wand which is starting to smell of over heated wood.

" Point me." 

It points straight ahead and I follow it for another hour, my feet constantly catching on roots, my hair in branches, my skin on brambles. The same jungle that was beautiful and welcoming yesterday…oh jesus, it was only yesterday, the same jungle seems to mock me and my lack of grace. My inability to even walk through what should be almost a path…

And then something lunges out of the bushes and grabs a hold of me roughly for just a second before jumping back to solidify itself into Sirius, who glares at me. Stupid man won't take the hint. I don't want

__

::I need::

Him with me.

__

::please don't leave me, it hurts and I'm scared::

I don't need him to die too.

__

::I don't want to die.::

" Fuck." Funny, that seems to be the only word I don't have to search for, trying vigorously to summon up. " Got loose already?" My vision blurs slightly, the sharp outlines of his features softening slightly, even with my glasses. His scowl is still vicious as he cradles his probably severely burnt hand to his chest.

" Yes I fucking got loose! Have you lost your bloody mind!?" His voice is a low sharp hiss that carries all the anger and venom, but stays trapped between us, not following the wind away. We must be near the camp is he's being so quiet. He flexes his right hand…no, his left hand. 

__

::His left is my right::

I shouldn't have to remind myself that.

" Traste Paccea Bastard." I grin at him, don't know why, and my balance starts to go again. I spread my fingers, hands out at my side as I jerk myself back over my center of gravity. Sirius reaches quickly for me and I take a step away from him, placing my back to a tree for a moments rest in the battle to stay functional.

" Don't touch me. You'll burn yourself again." Something subtle changes in his face, but my vision is worsening. I couldn't say what it was.

" You took the fucking potion, didn't you?" His voice is resigned and catches slightly at the end. I shrug and force my eyelids down over dry eyes. " What's happening to you?"

" The heat." Just talking about it makes it feel worse. " My body temperature is to high. It's effecting my motor skills slowly." I sag further against the tree. It shouldn't take so much energy just to say a few sentences. " I hadn't planned on this. We have a few hours at best before I can't do anything other than die."

__

::BUT I DON'T WANT TO DIE!::

Sirius makes a funny little choked noise, almost like a laugh.

" You know how to put a time limit on things don't you?" I lift an eyebrow slightly so he can't see the other one rises with it. I can't even cock my eyebrow anymore.

" You're the one who told me to plan on being dead by tonight." Sirius shakes his head slightly.

" Can you run?" No, no absolutely not. I can't even stand and talk to you anymore.

" I'm not track material anymore but I can keep up." No I can't. Not unless they're on the other side of this tree I'm leaning against. " How far away are they?"

" Half a mile maybe." He gestures off in almost the opposite direction I was getting ready to stumble off towards. Fuck. " What are we doing when we get there?" I reach behind me and grab the bag that's been hitting without rhythm against my back all morning. The leather starts to smolder in my grip and Sirius makes a face and takes it from me. I smile at him. The smell was about to make me sick.

" There's a glass bottle in there. When we reach the camp we hurl that at the gate and get back really fucking quickly." He seems to pause for a moment, waiting for me to continue.

" And…then?"

" And then…that's going to take out quite a lot and in the confusion we go in…through the back." God, my very simple, very easy to remember plan that a 7 year old could do is becoming a jumble in my head. I can barely spit out what we need to do, much less what's in the bottle. A magical equivalent to napalm. It get's shaken up upon impact and then in ten seconds it detonates and burns until it burns itself out. There's no putting it out, there's no stopping it, but thankfully, unless you move into it, there's no spreading it. Sirius just stares at me.

" Our plan sucks." I grin at him. He's right. What he knows of the plan…sucks.

" Yeah. Let's hope our sucky plan works." He shakes his head and sighs. " Come on." He turns through the trees and weaves his way out onto a small foot path and begins to run in long ground eating strides. I take a deep breath and push off after him, head pounding and heart racing painfully. He leads us out into a small clearing and I stumble in the long grasses, staggering the last final yard and collapsing against a tree. My heart aches, the pain tremendous. The physical exertion is only speeding up the potion. My vision blurs so badly I may as well not wear my glasses. I look at Sirius and gesture towards the bag.

" I think you're going to have to do this part yourself. I couldn't make it away in time. I'll head for the rear exit." I reach to touch his face, barely remembering his hand before I clench my fist, dropping it to the side. " I'll see you there." I take a shallow breath, unable to gulp a deep one and bolt for the far corner of the tall wooden walls, stumbling over nothing..

Cameron…how did you do this for almost two weeks?

It's purely luck that saves me when I stumble across a guard lounging against the wall, one hand falling against his bare skin at the same tine the fort rocks itself. Violently. His scream is drowned out in the general confusion and he tears the hood and shoulder piece off his body. His face is familiar. We went to school together, Malcolm Chant from Ravenclaw. He makes a move to turn and dash into the fort and I reach around, grabbing a hold of his exposed shoulder and gripping tightly, smelling his skin burn under my grip. He howls.

" Malcolm, I never thought you'd end up on this side of the war." My voice is almost conversational as he goes to his knees, howling with pain. My stomach turns at the cruelty as I kneel beside him before moving my hand. " Move from this spot and I promise I can make you wish you had never been born. I need some help." My vision is growing steadily worse and I rip off my glasses, watching the grass the metal falls upon smoke and smolder. " Your side seems to have my brother lying about somewhere. You wouldn't happen to know where he is would you?" My heart races as a figure comes slowly round the far trees, but makes no other move towards us. The wind shifts, blowing form behind me and the scent of sweat and oil comes with it. Sirius. Just Sirius. Malcolm is saying nothing, just crying as Sirius slowly moves towards us. I ask him the question again, grasping his chin and forcing his gaze to meet my eyes as his face burns in my hand. His mouth just works in a silent scream and I let him go, staring at him for a moment and then threaten to do the most terrible thing my mind can pull forward. His face goes white and he begins stammering out a shrill panicked ansewer. Something about a cave, pointing off into the far regions of the jungle. I stand up and let Sirius come closer. Please take this from me. Don't make me do this, hurt him more. He's not even my age. He's still a boy.

__

::a boy who kills, who rapes, who..::

A boy. A boy who sneers through a paper white face and widened, rolling eyes to talk cruelly about the wounded girl lying in the town, singing songs to herself to hide the rapes and breathing from her mind. Nana's bone handled blade is in my hands as I step between him and Sirius, slicing through layers of skin and muscle and vocal tissue, anything to stop the angry buzzing sound his words make in my hot brain. He makes a sucking gasping noise and crumples to his knees. 

And I feel no remorse as I wipe the blood on the grass and take a few dizzy steps in the direction he pointed. Sirius grabs my shirttail, speaking quickly, to quickly for me to seem to follow. His words sound like they're drifting through smoke and water, but I catch his meaning. 

Death eaters lie. Malcolm was lying. Go inside.

I follow him on weary feet.

The potion did everything the twins said it would. Half the compound is engulfed in brightly burning flames, anything or anyone touched by the potion from the first explosion wrapped in flickering death. Next to me Sirius looks stunned.

" Jesus Christ.

I ignore the flames because I feel no pity for them. I'm far from innocent, but still I burn. I've grown bitter and detached. If I can burn, so can they.

__

::Oh god this isn't me.::

And then I see it, on the other side of a small deep stream, a cave. Just like he said. The far side. I see Sirius looking at me curiously as he crouches in the bushes with me.

" Cave." Saying anything else is asking too much. There's no explanation needed. " Come on." I follow him to the end of the low cover and watch as he digs in the bag, pulling out two glass globes, each a bit bigger than a snitch and bound together by a thin gold wire. The twins said not to use them except in a dire case. They never said what they do, which I think is what Sirius just asked me. I shrug. " Throw them into the action and see." He stands quickly and hurls them through the air and they soar far into the flames and make the tiniest of explosions. Sirius turns to me and gives me _the look_, regardless of the fact that the shadowy, blurred streaks of color that I assume were guards are running towards the flames.

But that look turns to terror when the thick oily black cloud refuses to rise and instead begins to very quickly creep through the camp like a predator.

The already frantic screams grow desperately animalistic and I catch his attention, gesturing towards the water. "Don't breathe it and come on!"

He heads off at a full run and plunges into the water, barely a two minute swim. I take a glance at the bridge and then the cave, where my brother is and follow him.

It's like I never felt pain before. Even the searing of Cam's hand on my flesh was nothing like this. The warring of the roasting inside to the breath stealing freezing burn all over my skin. My arms shake and tremble as I fall to the sand on the other bank. There's no time for being weak, no time for pain. Voldemort can only not notice his entire camp burning for so long. A Death Eater staggers towards us, his face shrunken and waxy pale, eyes brilliant red from blood as he falls across the bridge just above me from my stance to the side, almost below it. Already I'm dry, my skin having burnt off the painful water. Sirius is making desperate gestures towards the rest of the island, yelling.

" I can't let that get across the island!" Hidden in the bag are two other glass orbs, filled with the only way to stop…whatever that cloud of searching death is. Already it's expanding, part of it roaming closer towards us and the other seeming to scent the air it's apart of and stretch long smoky tendrils out towards the village. 

I try to make my thick tongue move to explain this and can't. I take a shallow breath and plunge my overheated hands into the water and my vision explodes into little spots, the skin still oversensitive from the swim. I have to grab them and throw them before I'm hot enough to vaporize the precious liquid I need. I shove my hands inside the bag, banging them into many sharp edges and close them around two small smooth surfaces, running onto the bridge and heaving them as far as I can despite the protesting of every muscle I have. They barely touch the flames but they shatter and a thin white gas seeps out, overtaking the black smoke. Stopping it, making it go away.

" There! Now for the last time Come On!" He follows me as I force everything I have into running for the small crack in this rock wall and pushing through…into a large hallway with only three doors. Sirius stands next to the one on the right and I point my wand at the one closest to me. It start to smoke in my hand and I can't remember the unlocking spell. I close my eyes and use the most destructive curse I can, watching the door shatter off the hinges and fall inwards.

Inside it's so dark I might as well be blind, although part of that may be the fact that I've slowly been going blind all day. Barely I can see them, Ron's hair a beacon through the grim shadows. Their shallots are propped up so that they seem to lean on each other as if they just happened to fall asleep on the other's shoulder. 

I can't hear them breathe and can't check for a pulse. I walk closer and squint down at them. 

I can't tell.

Sirius reeks of death as he draws closer.

" I can't touch them. I don't know if…" He kneels down and reaches over them both…and checks Ron first. I can't stop the smile…or the stinging of what would be tears if I had them left. His godson is there, and he checks my brother for me before quickly moving his hand over the Harry. The intense searching look fades for a moment into blind panic before settling into relief.

" Alive." He never takes his eyes form them. " Won't survive an apperation without treatment. Anything in this destructive little bag of yours for healing?" I nod and the world swims. Now that I'm not moving, that the adrenaline is gone it hurts fiercely. My heart bangs erratically in my chest.

" Potion in the square bottomed flask. Won't bring them round, but might…fix their heart rates." He grabs wildly into the bag and pulls out the large flask I packed, pulling the cork with his teeth and taking turns pouring large amounts down each throat until it's empty. My wand is still clenched uselessly in my hand, smoke rising from it until Sirius jerks it from my grip, pointing it at the chains on them both. 

"Alohamora!" So that's the spell I wanted. The chains seem to ignore the fact that they should be open, but I do too because I hear a dull noise, like muffled footfall.

" Sirius I think I hear someone coming." He curses under his breath and then waves my wand quickly.

And all that suspends by brother and Harry are strands of long thick…noodles. He bites through them quickly and I'd be amused, if I wasn't trapped in the eyes of the man in the doorway.

He fills the doorway with his height and even with his features run together like ink in water I'd know who he is just by the cold sick smell of snake.

Voldemort. 

He gives me a sneering look at my shaking body and blank eyes and ignores me. Completely and totally, starting a light banter with Sirius, his wand trained directly between Sirius's eyes the entire time. Slowly I reach for the small handkerchief in my shirt pocket, taking a small eternity to draw it out without notice. Sirius is snarling, a hand laid protectively across each chest.

" Sirius!" They both snap their eyes to me as I wind up and hurl the small golden cross as hard as I can, letting the handkerchief fall from my hand as the gold glints through the dim air and smacks him, falling against him and triggering the portkey.

They're gone and safe and Voldemort is just staring at me with boiling anger and hatred.

" I will kill you in ways you can't imagine for this small setback boy." I push myself away from the wall and roll up my sleeves, giving him plenty of skin to grab onto. 

" Come get me."


	14. Can we get a hallelujah?

CHAPTER 14

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

I land with a thump on the grass outside the Weasley's pond, and pitch forward from the lung I was about to make, my ankle twisting under me.

" Fuck fuck fuck! You stupid little fucking shit!" I push myself up and summon up two floating stretchers, rolling them both onto them and running off as fast as I can towards the Weasley house in the distance, kicking the door open. Around the table a group of somber redheads look up, faces shuttered with pain and wands in hand. Molly gasps and falls back into a faint, Bill and Arthur supporting her as they ease her into a chair. Ginny and Charlie are at my side, wands supporting the stretchers as the twins rake long arms across the thick oak table, sending dishes shattering to the floor.

" Ron! Ron, Harry!" Ginny is calling their names clearly, lifting their eyelids and peering into them as her hands check their pulses at their throats. " We need to get them to St. Mungos. I can't do anything for them here. Charlie, do a field check, I'll head over and tell them to prep the emergency wards." I turn, dashing off towards the door. " Sirius, where are you going?"

" To help Percy." I glance over at my shoulder at Molly and Arthur. " I wish you could know what a hero your son is."

And Molly lets out the kind of shocked/sobbing/wail that only a human with a broken spirit can make as I lay Percy's wand on the table and disapperation out of the kitchen, the entire time in the darkness and still rushing outside of time and space eons too long.

He planned each and every step of this, down to the escape of myself and the boys. He had a portkey hidden in his pocket ready to go the entire time.

And I let him fool me the entire time.

The pop of apperation startles the Krardalsh in their pens, each letting out a roar of anger and fear. The sound echoes through the large cave as I run towards the far pen.

Golden glowing eyes stare out at me, a low growl warning me not to come any closer. I take another step and a large feline-like head appears from the shadows, slited eyes glaring at me.

" Taran." It cocks it's head in response to it's name, making a small chirping noise of inquisition before taking a step closer. It leans it's head out of the pen, a cat as big as a horse and sniffs at my hair and neck before letting out a rumbling purr that sounds more like the engine of my old bike. I open the pen and he walks out, crouching to be scratched between the blades of his shoulder and let me swing my legs across him, mounting him and squeezing his ribs with my knees, he lets out a purring growl and takes off at a lope out of the cave and up the sandy beach. With nudges in his ribs I drive him over the cart road and towards the thick billowing smoke coming from the jungle. There's no attempt at sneaking in this time. 

This time I want them to know death is coming. 

The sleek black body bounds across the jungle, eating miles like no horse could, nimble feet holding on all surfaces and jumping over anything in it's path. We reach the flaming gates and my uncle's mount is trained well, he doesn't shy from the flames, simply turns with the direction of my knee and goes _over_ the wall in the back, landing with a bone jarring thud. A death eater looks at us both for a moment too long. Taran lets out a roaring yowl and lunges, jaws flashing and catches the man in his mouth, giving him a vicious shake. His neck snaps with a sharp crack and I slide off of the Krardalsh as it lays the body between it's paws.

" No!' It looks up at me. " Take it and run! Go!" Carefully it picks the limp body up between it's teeth carefully and bounds over the wall. The death eater between his teeth gives me one final look of pain and terror before his eyes go blank with shock.

There's no one else to bother me as I run through the camp and across the bridge, back towards the garrison. 

__

::not too late, not too late, gods not to late::

I can hear the screams as soon as I enter the cavern and they come from the far door.

Inside is a throne room of black rock, stalactites hanging like chandeliers and in the middle stands Voldemort in just a pair of tailored black pants, his wand in his right hand, his left cradled against his chest. From here I can see it's blackened and burnt. On the floor Percy is screaming, the rock itself holding him down, wrapped around his wrists as a small patch of ice spreads across his skin. 

I lunge at him with my bare hands and he spins. His wand flicks once and I hit the wall so hard my head makes a sickening cracking sound. My vision blurs and flickers. I can feel the blood seeping down my neck.

" What was the point?" The voice seems to be coming to me for far away. I think my ear is bleeding as he leans down over me, black hair, tickling my face. He moves back, laughing, enjoying the echo as it bounces around the room, stabbing into my ear. " There was no point! I will win this! I've _won_ already!"

" No, you haven't." I can't turn my head, but from the corner of my eye I can see, Percy roll his head towards us, a small smile on his face. "Not this time. You see Thom riddle." Voldemort's face twists into a mask of utter fury. " _I win."_

And all I see is light

He grabs me by the throat and holds me for an eternally long moment, squeezing as hard as he can before hurling me back against the wall, screaming in that high shrill voice of his. A long piercing note. The skin of his palm is blackened, burnt beyond simple healing. My vision blurs one last time and then leaves me as my head bounces off the floor. My hearing is still there, and I hear him taking deep ragged breaths, and lifting me with his wand. My arms fall helplessly to my side as he pulls me closer to him. I'm not sure if the burnt flesh I smell is myself or him.

" One sniveling little Weasley is as good as another. They'll have to use an oracle to discover who your remains belonged to." He turns me upside down and my head begins to truly pound. " Which one are you anyway?" He doesn't wait for me to ansewer. " Oh yes, the one who survived the bombing…You had the exceedingly helpful boyfriend. The handsome one." His voice drops into almost a low purr. " The _very_ handsome one. Brave too. Never begged. Not when we broke every finger in his left hand, not when we healed them so we could do it again, and not when we poured the potion down his throat." The tip of something painfully cold and sharp traces across my cheekbone before stinging, a shallow cut, almost…playful or teasing. " Will you be just as strong?"

And he walks away and the air moves and shifts around me as he pulls me along

" I noticed the most extraordinary side effect of your little project. It seems your lover had a strong aversion to water after he took the potion. I don't suppose you'd tell me if you have the same amusing dislike." My stomach heaves.

" I don't you'd just bugger yourself and die if I asked you too?" He flips me right side up so quickly I'm going to be sick.

Correction. I am sick.

All. Over. Voldemort.

I should spare myself the humiliation and trigger the potion _now_.

__

:: You have to wait Percy. It's not time.::

Voldemort gives a disgusted little sigh.

" And here I was hoping even a _Weasley_ had some manners. It's exceedingly impolite to make a mess of your captors like this."

" You like to talk a lot, don't you?" He ignores me, and I hear a rustling noise.

" I mean, honestly, just look at the mess you made." I turn my head towards his voice and he goes silent for a moment before laughing.

" You can't see can you little Weasley? Your oh so clever potion is breaking you apart from the inside out, isn't it? Tell me, little one, can you smell yourself burning? Because I can." His voice rises and falls but is always a self satisfied purr as he walks around me. " You're lucky the idea of canabalism is repulsive to me, because right now…you're perhaps medium rare." He gives a sadistic chuckle that makes no sense. He stops in front of me. " Oh, so sorry, just imagining serving you on a plate with some potatoes and a light sauce to your family." 

Trying to hurl yourself at someone when they're holding you in the air is a silly idea. Really. It gets you nowhere and honestly just amuses them. At least it amuses him.

" Fuck you!" He goes quiet for a second before the spell supporting me gives way and I hit the rock so suddenly my wrist spins and breaks below me.

I fucking howl, trying to curl in on myself despite the pull of the magic spreading me wide across the floor and the unbreakable hardness clamping down around my wrists and ankles. My chest tightens and the muscles across my back go tight as I try to fight against them. I'm trapped in pitch black, bound and about to die.

For too many long seconds I forget that I have the means to stop this in its tracks. Two words and it's all over. No, I spend the time surging up against the clostrophobic sensation when it strikes me right in my chest, so cold I can't draw a breath before I scream and creeping slowly over my body..

I can't breathe can't stop can't think can't help can't win…

And then there's a muffled roar and the sound of feet thundering across the floor as the pain just…stops.

I draw the first ragged breath in what seems like an eternity of little swirling spots that I thought would be an endless blackness.

My body jumps as the sound of something large and heavy smashes against a far wall. Whatever took that blow won't be getting up soon.

I suppose it's to much to hope that was Voldemort and it is as I hear his voice carrying through the cavern.

" What was the point?" He begins laughing loudly, letting the sound carry his so called triumph. " There was _no_ point! I will win this! I've _won_ already!"

And I can't take this anymore. If the Dresdenaire hasn't reached it's full potential by now then I'll have to make do with a smaller blast than anticipated.

" No, you haven't." I roll my head in the direction of them both and smile at him. Smile because he's wrong and hell never win and there won't be enough left of him for his soul to ever try and rise again…but mostly because that has to be Sirius that's crumpled and broken there. There's no one else it could be.

He came back for me.

"Not this time. You see Thom riddle." I enjoy picturing the look of anger on his face as this gets to him like nothing I else could have. " _I win."_

EPILOUGE

Breeze. A cool breeze that feels so good on my face. I tilt back my head and take a deep breath of it, letting it fill my lungs.

And this is about the time I realize that I should be broken and dead in a cave and _not_ on a warm patch of grass breathing in sweet air.

I open my eyes.

The sky is so fucking blue it's truly frightening. Nothing is that blue. But this sky is. I'm almost in a little nest, curled up on myself in a hollow of tall grasses and I sit upright, staring straight up at the little cloud that floats by.

I have lost my mind.

That's it. There's no other explination for it. Obviously nothing I thought happened did because if it did I wouldn't be here. I'd be dead and not in…I can't even think it. I'm a betrayer and a murderer and a fucking atheist for Christ's sake. I do not get a free pass to anyplace _good_.

And then I see my wrists. My smooth, tanned, unmarked wrists. Not a single scar or scratch from twelve years of twisting in restraints. From never letting scabs heal and skin grow.

This skin has never left it's frame. This skin is whole and mine.

I tug my shirt off over my head quickly, throwing it off to the side and pour over my skin in the sunlight. 

Nothing. 

Not the scar across my ribs from the faceplant I took over the handlebars of the Black Shadow, Not a scratch from the encounters with the whomping willow, just inches and expanses of smooth flesh.

I stand up and wriggle out of my trousers, tossing them somewhere along with my shirt and trying to fight the silly grin spreading slowly across my face, until it hurts to hold it back.

" Woohoo!" I take a running jump out of my hollow and do a cartwheel, spinning around and around until I fall, just letting the sun soak into my skin.

I actually wiggle in the grass, letting it rub across my skin. I never felt so alive. Ever. This is perfect and I don't deserve it, but I'll accept it happily.

And then the laughter starts.

" Really Sirius, leave it to _you_ to get here and make getting naked your first priority." I know that voice. My eyes open and just stare vacantly into space because if I look over and it isn't real…

She snickering behind her hand, hair falling out of a sloppy ponytail, green eyes bright with amusement as she looks at a spot above my head, holding my pants out to me with her other hand.

" Lily." She gives a squeal as I lunge up, crushing her and not caring, breathing in her smell and feeling her skin under my hand as I rub her back. " oh god, Lily…Lily" She laughs, stroking my hair.

" Sirius…I can't breathe."

" Sorry, sorry…" I grab her arms, thrusting her back and looking at her. " Oh god, you look just like you did last time. Still so beautiful." She blushes.

" And you look great. Very naked, but great." I look down.

" I am rather naked…aren't I?"

" That's one way of putting it." She thrusts my pants into my hands and turns around, giving me time to step back into them and zip the fly. " Are you quite done yet? We still have to look for Percy. He's around here some where…" My stomach clenches.

" Percy…" And then I can't think of Percy cause _he's_ sprinting across the field, James calling him a dirty fucker as he tries to keep up.

I hit the ground with a thud, but it doesn't hurt really, just shakes my bones a bit and leaves me breathless as I stare up at the Angel on my chest.

And that's fucking funny, cause he is an angel now. Or close enough anyways. I heave us over so that I'm sprawled on top of him and kiss his eyes, his lips his hair and his throat.

" My Remus, my Moony don't you _ever_ die on me again!" He laughs, loud and long and more honestly than he ever laughed as a grown man, maybe even at all.

" Damn, and there goes my devious plan of playing tag throughout the Cosmos." He's panting slightly from his run as he rolls me off his hips and helps me to my feet and smirks as James takes me back to the ground, pounding on my back and howling with laughter.

" You're fucking old Padfoot!" He laughs. " Look at this hair! Braided all down your back. That shit was barely on your fucking shoulders!" I get my hands under me and buck my back, tossing him off and pinning him.

" You know, in my idealzation of you I forgot what fucking filthy mouth you had." My face almost hurts from grinning so much. Almost. A small foot lands not so delicately in my ribs and Lily is there, giving us all stern looks, spoiled by the grin on her face. We're as bad as fucking kids again.

" Cam's still waiting by Percy. He's going to be ready to wake up soon." And it's like someone threw cold water in my face until Remus wraps his arms around me, nuzzling my neck.

" I'm so glad he gave you something to live for down there. I owe him more for that than I can repay." His breath is sweet in my ear. " I watched you you know." I'm not sure what my face looks like but Lily is laughing uncontrollably.

" Okay boys, save it for later. It's almost time. Come on." And then there's a delicately boned bay mare standing there next to a large dark stag and it's been so long since I've seen these forms.

And then a cold wet nose presses to my side and there's a tawny brown wolf at my side, who cocks his head to the side and then takes off at a run.

Padfoot follows.

The smells are amazing here. The sun, the grass, the people, the creatures, it's all overwhelmingly wonderful.

And then we stop around a small hollow and the figure inside is slowly growing more solid as it moves in a gentle sleep. Next to him is a man, his legs crossed and his eyes locked resolutely on Percy. I'm a man again, crouching in the grass, studying him.

This must be Cameron.

His hair is colored like blood and chocolate and falls in his eyes. His body is lean and tense as he actually _bounces_ a bit in place watching Percy as he slowly and finally becomes _solid_.

Real and here.

His eyes are jade green and glowing as he crawls into the nest and kneels over the boy, hands cradling his face.

" Percy? Lover?"

His eyes flutter and open and they're shining and the same rich chocolaty brown. I didn't even realize how washed out and dull they had become until I look at them now.

" Cam?" The laughter is thick and they roll in a tangle of limbs out of the little hollow and into myself and Remus, sending us all in a sprawl. I look up and Percy is staring at me like he found something he'd lost long ago. I grab his face.

" I can't believe you fucking did that! You blew us the fuck away!" And the oddest thing is that I'm laughing. Laughing so hard like there's nothing funnier than being at the center of an explosion. His arms are wrapped tightly around my neck and he's beaming at me.

" I can't believe you fucking came back. You were safe…I had gotten you away safely…"

" How was I supposed to leave you there like that? Kinda love you like that." And Cam starts laughing and moves and oh it was _his_ leg under me.

" You're right Remus, he will say anything on his mind." Percy pulls back, grinning and dazed and Cam catches my face in his hand.

" You took such good care of him. Thank you." And he leans down and kisses me quickly, before sitting up and grinning beamingly at the rest of us.

" So…who wants to go look at living people in the shower?"

" Is that what we do up here?"

" No, sometimes we change the weather to piss people off and sometimes we just shag." James grins. I extract myself form the tangle of limbs and stand, cupping Remus' face.

" I missed you so much. Come with me?" He takes my hand and pulls me off away from the others and down into soft sand in what feels like two steps.

" But…"

" Don't think to hard. You'll understand it all later." And his teeth are a gentle pressure at the hollow of my neck, forcing me still. " Don't move mate. I have a lot of relearning to do."

It didn't hurt, that was a surprise. Instead there's just a pressure on my chest. A...shifting pressure? Warm hands cup my face between them and the air I breath is the warm sweet stale of air that's been used before.

" Percy? Lover?"

I open my eyes slowly, afraid of whatever there is to see, because I shouldn't be seeing anything. I should just. be. dead.

Above me are gold flecked green eyes, framed round with lashes that go from a reddish gold at the base to almost black at the tips and thick arching auburn eyebrows above them. The left is caught through with a small shining golden hoop. 

Oh God…I can't breathe.

" Cam?" His eyes crinkle as he laughs and his hair falls in a curtian around up, the light shining through a rich red.

My chest is too tight, it's going to burst. But when it does…It's just laughter that comes out. Laughter like no sound I've made in years as I push him off me and he grabs my arm, rolling to the side out of a small indentation in the grass and pulling me with him. All I see if the sky and the grass and him.

Oh, I see him. As perfect as ever, alive and whole down to the last piercing.

And then we stop paying attention to where we're rolling and crash into something large and yielding that laughs and goes over with us. Whatever we landed on is moving and I open ,my eyes…and stare down at Sirius. He's staring at me with a crazy grin, holding my face steady and laughing.

" I can't believe you did that! You blew us the fuck away!" But he's not mad. He's laughing. Laughing like there's nothing better than our compleate and utter evaporation off the planet. 

And right now…there isn't because I've got my arms wrapped around his neck and Cam sprawled lazily across my back, writing stupid things on the exposed skin where my shirt rode up in our tumble.

" I can't believe you fucking came back! You were safe…I had gotten you away!" I want to be angry at him for throwing his life away, but I can't. Espically when he grins up at me and looks so young and happy. Two things I've never seen him appear. Young and truly, really happy..

" How was I supposed to leave you there like that?" His voice is full of mock outrage until he lifts his head, looking me in the eyes and smiling. " Kinda love you like that."

And I'm happy enough to die again, even when Cam starts laughing so hard he shakes my body along with his.

" You're right Remus, he really will say anything." I pull back as Cam gives a tug on my shirt and leans between us. Hands brush my hair and I turn to see Professor Lupin smiling at me. He leans so that his face is barely an inch from mine and smiles.

" You got him here. Thank you." His breath is soft against my lips and then he pulls away with a squeeze to my hands.

And then Cam sits up and slings his arm around my waist, squeezing me.

" So…who wants to go look at live people in the shower?" Sirius begins snickering and trying to wiggle from beneath us..

" Is that what we do up here?"

" No," I look over and for a moment I think we didn't save Harry. And then he turns laughing blue eyes at me. " Sometimes we change the weather to piss people off and sometimes we just shag." He squeezes the hand of the woman next to him, her thick dark red hair falling out of a hasty ponytail. She wrinkles her nose at him and punches his shoulder.

And that's when I notice Sirius has extracted himself from our tangle of bodies and is nowhere to be seen. Cam catches my frantic eyes and points to a slowly mending rip in the air where I can see through to a darkened beach, two figures stretched across the sand before it slowly closes up with a shimmering pop.

" This is what really is." Cam gestures at the endless field. " If we require anything else, we can create it. Now come on." He stands and pulls me to my feet, wrapping his arms around my waist so tight there's no space between us. " I want to go home." And he waves good bye to Harry's parents and takes my hand, pulling me with him two steps forward and into our room. I step forward and the rainbows from the crystals in the window dance across my shirt and face. I tilt my head back, letting the colors dance over my skin before falling backwards onto the bed, letting the springs creak familiarly and the bed give slightly under my weight.

" It's like none of it ever happened." I look down at Zoe who's fearlessly attacking the rainbows that dare to reflect into her tank. " No," I change my mind " It's even better than that." Cam crawls across the bed and sprawls across me, resting his head on my stomach and looking up at me. " It's like it _did_ happen…and we all live happily ever after." He smiles, not the gigantic grins we've all worn the entire reunion, but the soft smiles I've never seen when he wasn't looking at me.

" Speak true." His voice is a murmur as he crawls up my body, brushing his lips to mine. " Can I get a Hallelujah for that?" I slip the tip of my tongue across the inner lining of his bottom lip.

" Hallelujah."

Fins


	15. Notes from the girl behind the keys

There's no html on here, it's just a simple page because it's just my authors notes. This is the longest work of fan fiction I've done in years and probally one of the best I'm afraid the flow of it being posted here was disrupted by my move, but to make up for it I posted the rest of it all here in one go. There's lots more very intresting stuff about the story at my site (which is getting a huge revamping as soon as I can get off my roomates computer and onto my own again) including a time line for hallelujah, illustrations and other such fun stuff here http://www.geocities.com/queen_arnica/. I really hope if you made it this far you had a fun time reading this and a special thanks to my friends who had to suffer through many nights of ims in which I constantly spammed them with pieces of this story.  
~Mwah  
  
And for full authors notes jotted down when I was writing this (if you're just that bored, cause I am sometimes... give a look at an amazing group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unconventional_love/ or, in non link terms, Unconventional love. It's a great site, hope to see you there, and just remeber, they aren't dead, they're just finally starting to live.  
  
~Arnica 


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